World Rhymes›Ladushki
Ладушки
Ladushki · “Little claps”
RussianClapping rhymePublic domain
The first clapping game of many Russian babies. An adult holds the child's hands and claps them together while asking, "Where were you? At grandmother's!" and at the end the hands fly up like little birds.
The rhyme
Ладушки, ладушки,
Где были? У бабушки!
Что ели? Кашку!
Что пили? Бражку!
Кашка сладенька,
Бражка пьяненька,
Шу! шу! шу!.. полетела,
полетели на головку сели…
Romanization
Ladushki, ladushki,
Gde byli? U babushki!
Chto eli? Kashku!
Chto pili? Brazhku!
Kashka sladen'ka,
Brazhka p'yanen'ka,
Shu! shu! shu!.. poletela,
poleteli na golovku seli…
Good to know
What it means
Little claps, little claps! Where have you been? At grandmother's! What did you eat? Porridge! What did you drink? Home-brewed mash! The porridge is sweet and the brew is a little tipsy. Shoo, shoo, shoo, off they flew and landed on the little head.
How to play
Hold the baby's hands and clap them together on the beat of the words. On the last line, make the hands fly up like birds and settle on the baby's head.
History
About this rhyme
Russian parents and nannies take a baby's hands and clap them while saying this rhyme, then lift the hands to the head at the end. A play of 1890 already shows it as an everyday nursery game. In 1838 a writer linked the word "ladushki" to a Slavic goddess called Lada, but most scholars today think that goddess is a later invention, so we do not tell it as fact. "Brazhka" was a weak home-brewed drink; it belongs to the old wording, which we show as it was written.
Sources & rights
- The rhyme is anonymous and traditional. We follow the full text printed in the comedy "Klin klinom vyshibai" by V. A. Krylov (1890); a four-line form was quoted by Mikhail Makarov in 1838. Spelling is modernised.
- The meaning, the game instructions and the background text are written by us in our own words. The Russian text still needs a native-speaker check.
- There is no recording or tune on this page: we do not claim any.
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