Green Forest, Green Forest lyrics and meaning

Vai tu girele, girele žalioji
Pilna drabnų paukštelių

Ne ca gegiula lizdelį sukrovė
Ne ca raiba kūkavo

Vyšnių sodelį lizdelį sukrovė
Obelėlį kūkavo

Ne ca motula manį vis žadėjo
Ne ca manį nulaido

Kitan kaimelin manį vis žadėjo
Per laukelį nulaido

Jaunam berneliui manį vis žadėjo
Už našlalio nulaido

Green Forest, Green Forest: song interpretation

This song can be understood as a parallel song comparing a cuckoo and a young woman. At the beginning, the green forest is full of small birds, but it is said that the cuckoo did not build its nest here and did not cuckoo here. This image can be interpreted as a cuckoo settled somewhere away from its original place.

Then it is said that the cuckoo built its nest in a cherry garden and cuckooed in an apple tree, and the song immediately turns to the girl: her mother did not promise her here and did not send her away here. This parallel can be understood as a comparison between the cuckoo and a girl being married away.

At the end, it is said that the mother promised her to another village and to a young man, but sent her to a widower. This image can be interpreted as disappointed expectation and frustration over the marriage arranged for her. This is one possible meaning, but the parallel between cuckoo and girl is clear in the song.

Green Forest, Green Forest: symbols and phrases

Cuckoo nesting away
The cuckoo that built its nest not in the forest but in the garden. It is parallel to the girl married away from home.
Cherry garden and apple tree
The place where the cuckoo settled. It signifies a foreign, non-native place.
"Promised to another village, sent across the field"
The girl married to another village. It signifies marriage far from home.
"Promised to a young man, sent to a widower"
The girl expected a young groom but was married to a widower. It signifies disappointed expectation.

Green Forest, Green Forest: song history

"Green Forest, Green Forest" belongs to wedding and family songs in which a girl's marriage is shown through a parallel image from nature. The whole song is arranged by parallelism: in a forest full of birds, it is said that the cuckoo built its nest not in the forest but in a cherry garden, and at once this cuckoo settled away from home is compared with a girl whom her mother promised to another village and sent away far from home.

The exact place and time of recording are not given on this page, so the song is presented by genre traits. Its structure is marked by negative parallelism, "not here... but there...," and the repeated formula "promised - sent away," intensifying the note of disappointed expectation: she was promised to a young man but married to a widower. Similar songs that parallel cuckoo and bride are known in various Lithuanian regions.

sources

  • Lietuvių liaudies dainynas, vols. 1-23, Vilnius 1980-2011 (LLTI)
  • A. Juška. Lithuanian Wedding Songs, 2 vols., Vilnius 1955
  • Catalogue of Lithuanian Folk Songs, 6 vols., Vilnius 1972-1986

Green Forest, Green Forest: sources