Bä, bä, vita lamm

White lamb, have you any wool? Yes, yes, little child, I have my sack full. A holiday coat for father, a Sunday skirt for mother, and two pairs of stockings for the little, little brother.

The Swedish song grew out of the English "Baa, baa, black sheep". According to the Swedish Wikipedia, August Strindberg translated it in 1872 for a children's book and Ottilia Adelborg printed a version in 1890. Alice Tegnér then reworked the words and wrote her own tune, which is not the tune used in English, and printed the song in the first volume of her series "Sjung med oss, mamma!" in the early 1890s (sources give 1892 or 1893). We show the words of that first printing in modern spelling. Tegnér herself changed "lilla barn" to "kära barn" much later, in 1943, and we do not use that form. Generations of Swedish children have learned the song at home and in preschool.