World Rhymes›Fengaraki mou lambro
Φεγγαράκι μου λαμπρό
Fengaraki mou lambro · “My bright little moon”
GreekMoon rhymePublic domain
A Greek children's rhyme sung to the moon. Children ask the little moon to light their way in the dark, and mothers sing it to small children too. It is a short, gentle verse about walking to school to learn to read and write.
The rhyme
Φεγγαράκι μου λαμπρό,
φέγγε μου να περπατώ,
να πηγαίνω στο σχολειό,
να μαθαίνω γράμματα,
του Θεού τα πράγματα.
Romanization
Fengaraki mou lambro,
fenge mou na perpato,
na pigaino sto scholeio,
na mathaino grammata,
tou Theou ta pragmata.
Good to know
What it means
My bright little moon, shine for me so that I can walk, so that I can go to school and learn my letters, the things of God.
History
About this rhyme
Children across Greece sing this to the moon when walking in the dark, and mothers also use it as a lullaby. Many Greeks link it to the story of the "secret school"; historians treat that story as a legend, and folklore experts say the song and the legend have separate origins. We show only the children's rhyme. A song printed in 1825 begins with the same first line but is a different text, which we do not show. The school lines appear in print by 1844. Longer versions add lines about sewing and embroidery, and there is a joking version with another ending; we show the short form.
Sources & rights
- The rhyme is anonymous and traditional. We show the short school form printed in Daniel Sanders, Das Volksleben der Neugriechen (Mannheim, 1844), written in modern Greek spelling; the same lines are given in the Greek Wikipedia. We read the book in a noisy scan, so the spelling is ours.
- The meaning and the background text are written by us in our own words. The Greek text and its transliteration still need a native-speaker check.
- There is no recording or tune on this page: we do not claim any.
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