Bye, Baby Bunting

A traditional rhyme in the English language, in print since at least the eighteenth century. It paints a playful, reassuring picture: the whole family busy providing for the new baby, with father off hunting for a soft rabbit skin to wrap the little one in.

When explorers and settlers sailed for the New World from 1492 onwards, they didn’t only bring goods and tools — they brought the prayers and cradle songs they sang to their children. Lullabies from fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Europe were “replanted” in the Americas, where they slowly mixed with local traditions — which is why so many American lullabies still carry an old European heart inside them.