All the Pretty Horses (lullaby)

"All the Pretty Little Horses"(also known as "Hush-a-bye") is a traditional lullaby from the southern United States. As the song was transmitted by oral tradition, not much is definitively known about it.

Meaning

Current theory is that the lullaby was sung by black slaves to their white charges during the pre-Civil War period. (This theory is backed by the reference to "wee little lamby...cried for her mammy" as slaves were often forcibly separated from their own families in order to serve their owners. This verse is in a very different emotional tenor to the rest of the lullaby, suggesting a particular significance.)

Lyrics

The oldest surviving set of lyrics are as follows:

“Hush-a-bye, don't you cry,
Go to sleepy little baby.
When you wake, you shall have,
All the pretty little horses.

Blacks and bays, dapples and greys,
Go to sleep you little baby,
Hush-a-bye, don't you cry,
Go to sleepy little baby.
Hush-a-bye, don't you cry,
Go to sleepy little baby,
When you wake, you shall have,
All the pretty little horses.

Way down yonder, down in the meadow,
There's a poor wee little lamby.
The bees and the butterflies pickin' at its eyes,
The poor wee thing cried for her mammy.

Hush-a-bye, don't you cry,
Go to sleepy little baby.
When you wake, you shall have,
All the pretty little horses.”

Musical and Literary Adaptations

"All the Pretty Little Horses" has inspired a variety of recordings (both direct performances of the known lyrics and adaptations thereof).Some of the singers who have recorded adaptations of "All the Pretty Little Horses" include (but are not limited to):

Caroline Herring
Calexico
Coil
Current 93
Joan Baez
Olivia Newton-John
Peter, Paul and Mary
Charlotte Church
Shawn Colvin
The Chieftains with Patty Griffin

It has also been inspired at least several pieces of literature, including Cormac McCarthy's award winning novel in 1992 (All the Pretty Horses), a young adult short story in the 1998 Here There Be Ghosts collection by Jane Yolen and David Wilgus, as well as Lisa Saport's 1999 children's picture book adaptation (All the Pretty Little Horses: A Traditional Lullaby).

ources

*"American Folk Traditional: According to Living Documents in American History from Earliest Colonial Times to the Civil War, edited by John A Scott," (Trident Press 1963), the song was collected by Alan Lomax, who learned it from his mother, who took it from North Carolina to Texas after the Civil War.
*National Institutes of Health, Department of Health & Human Services (http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/lyrics/prettyhorses.htm)