Pilgrim's Braking Branches..

Whenever I heard the quiet and relaxing lullaby "Rock-a-bye Baby" as a child, (a few days ago!), the melody always knocked me out hard just like it is meant to do. As I grew older I remembered the song and the words and couldn't understand why someone would be so gruesome and that parents would even sing to their kid about another kid's cradle braking while in a tree and the baby falling to the ground. We all know it....

"Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetop,
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,
down goes baby, cradle and all."

I always picture a tiny baby in a white cradle somehow magically placed at the highest point of a tree right next to the moon at night and then a huge gust of wind comes and brakes the fragile cradle and the baby just plummets all the way down the tree hitting branches upon branches until it is finally stopped by the hard ground. It's so evil!

So I wanted to figure out where this little song actually came from and what it really means and share it with you!

You may have already known but the song is possibly dated back all the way to the 1600's. It is rumoured that it was written by a young pilgrim who sailed to America on the Mayflower who observed the way native-American women rocked their babies in birch-bark cradles, which were suspended from the branches of trees, allowing the wind to rock the baby to sleep. However, the branches holding the cradles sometimes had a habit of breaking, causing the cradle to fall and the baby in it to get hurt.

It still seems messed up to me but there are other theories too. I do know one thing, I'm glad I didn't think about the lyrics all those times I was being sung to sleep with them by mi madre!