Evergreen

78 EVERGREEN Autumn
Hush-a-bye baby on the tree top,
When the wind blows the cradle will
rock,
When the bough breaks the cradle
will fall,
Down will come baby, cradle and all.
The alternative
version of
this nursery
rhyme is “Rock-a-bye
baby on the tree top”
which is believed to have replaced
Hush-a-bye
Baby
the original lyrics in the mid-19th
century, possibly in America where
many people believe it to have begun
as a Native American lullaby. We
know they placed babies in the
branches of a tree
and allowed the wind
to rock the infant
to sleep because the
Pilgrim Fathers noted
their birch bark cradles when they
first crossed the Atlantic, but is there
more to it than that?
Almost certainly and one suggestion
is French in origin, relating to a fable
about a nurse warning about the
baby falling into the clutches of a
wolf waiting below the tree. Another
suggests a link to the Saxon word
“boh” which was pronounced “bock”,
the first line reading “on the green
boh” to rhyme with “rock”. Pure
fantasy? Who can tell.
The Pilgrim Fathers sailed to America
in the Mayflower and noted how Native
Americans placed their babies in birch
bark cradles and allowed the wind to rock
them to sleep in a tree.