This thing has been making rounds lately on both the FB and Tumblr, and although the picture doesn't lie as such, it's not a traditional Icelandic lullaby. It's from the book Salka Valka by Laxness... but to be fair he was a great satirist and lyrics like the above would actually fit perfectly in with typical Icelandic lullabies (it probably has even been made into one). Sometimes I think Icelanders of old just neverminded the "getting the kids to sleep"-part and decided that silence in the house was the main goal and fastest achieved by making sure the little ones were holding their breath out of fear.
Bíum bíum bambaló (made rather famous by Sigur Rós) is a good example:
Bíum bíum bambaló, bambaló og dillidillidó
Vini mínum vagga ég í ró
En úti biður andlit á glugga.Bíum bíum bambaló, bambaló and dillidillidó
I lull my friend to sleep
But outside waits a face at the window.
...yeaaah I wouldn't feel very sleepy after that. There's of course many explanations to what the face is - some people say it's the moon, some say it's the father of the child or a friend of the servant lulling the children to sleep, but going by Icelandic fairytales the things that usually look through your window are trolls looking for a meal. When asked about the creepiest Icelandic lullaby Bíum bíum bambaló tends to be mentioned among the first ones.
Heiðlóarkvæði (= The Golden Plover Poem) is not exactly a lullaby but illustrates well how Icelandic poetry (and often the melody of the song as well) fools you into thinking everything's fine, only to punch you in the teeth at the last lines: the golden plover is singing midair and everything's just great and wonderful except the end:
Lóan heim úr lofti flaug,
ljómaði sól um himinbaug,
blómi grær á grundu, -
til að annast unga smá.
- Alla étið hafði þá
hrafn fyrir hálfri stundu.The plover flew home, sun shining brightly, flowers everywhere -
to tend to the little ones. - They all had been gobbled up by a raven. (a very free form translation btw)
And then there's lullabies that don't sound so bad, but wait until you hear the story behind them:
Móðir mín í kví kvíMóðir mín í kví, kví, kvíddú ekki því, því
Ég skal ljá þér duluna mína, duluna mína að dansa í.My mother in the sheep pen, don't fret,
I will lend you my rags, for you to dance in.
A servant woman had secretly given birth to a child, wrapped it in rags and abandoned it outside to die (in the old times being pregnant out of wedlock was a crime worth death penalty, if you visit Þingvellir you can see the place where the sentences were carried out). Later on as she and another servant woman were milking sheep she mentioned the oncoming dances and how she didn't have any suitable clothes to wear, and as a reply a child's voice sang the above song from under the sheep pen...
And of course there's also
Sofðu unga ástin mín (= sleep my little love) that's just a cute lullaby originating in a theatre play, except that the original singer Halla threw her child to Barnafoss waterfall right after singing it. To be fair though that's
hopefully just a dramatized version for the play, although it is based on real people - Fjalla-Eyvindur and his wife Halla - who were outlaws. They did have children but according to church records only one of them actually survived to adulthood.
