What are the most haunting lullabyes and children's songs?

[BillHadersNewWife]

I find Lavenders Blue and "On the Mountain Stands a Lady" wonderfully creepy.

What about you?

Ah...the Highland Faerie Lullaby is sad! I remember "Up the airy mountain, down the rushy glen, I dare not go a hunting for fear of little men"

Another fairy type rhyme...but not a song I don't think.

The song "Didn't leave nobody but the baby" a baby left alone in the days of slavery, very sad.

Seal Lullaby. Haunting and beautiful

Boys and Girls come out to play I always find quite haunting.

Also it’s not a children’s lullaby but I remember by grandmother reading the Antigonish poem to me as a child and it terrified me haha

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there!
He wasn't there again today,
Oh how I wish he'd go away!

Is the one..

Bablo I frighten my own children with the man on the stair one! They love it though.

Somewhere over the rainbow

It’s quite upsetting, I think. I can remember feeling sad about the left-behind baby and how scared she must have been. I must have been a very introspective toddler!

@RightOnTheEdge Oh gosh, yes it is very sad then! No wonder it made him sad. I suspect they didn't sing all of it though.

@PunishmentSnart Yeah it was a feeling it gave him, and the taking my sunshine away bit I think. He still remembers it making him sad.

Ring around the Rosy's.

I read somewhere once they would circle children who had a the plague and when they sung "a tissue a tissue, they all fell down" was actually then dying.

I can't sing it anymore because it makes me sad!

Surely you mean "Ring a' ring a' roses" rather than Ring around the Rosys?? Are you American Milkshake I know Americans say that.

My Mum would sing Nobody's Child to us when we were young.
😂😂😂

I'm nobody's child
I'm nobody's child
Just like the flowers
I'm growing wild
No mummy's kisses
And no daddy's smile
Nobody wants me
I'm nobody's child

This Manx one - 'Ushag veg ruy' (Little Red Bird) always makes me shiver:

Ring a ring of rosies (plague rash was round ring shapes)
A pocket full of posies (they believed illness was spread by bad smells and would carry flowers to defend against catching the plague)
Atishoo Atishoo (sneezing was one of the later symptoms of the plague)
We all fall down (dead)

Ashes in the water (cremated bodies were disposed of in rivers)
Ashes in the sea (logical progression)
We all jump up with a 1 2 3 (might be jumping for fun, might be souls off to heaven)

...at least that's what I was taught. I may be wrong in places.

I came on to say ‘Nobody’s Child’ about a blind boy in an orphanage - has me howling every time

As I was slowly passing
An orphans' home one day
And stopped for just a moment
To watch the children play
Alone a boy was standing
And when I asked him why
He turned with eyes that could not see
And he began to cry
I'm nobody's child
I'm nobody's child
Just like the flowers
I'm growing wild
No mummy's kisses
And no daddy's smile
Nobody wants me
I'm nobody's child
People come for children
And take them for their own
But they all seem to pass me by
And I am left alone
I know they'd like to take me
But when they see I'm blind
They always take some other child
And I am left behind
I'm nobody's child
I'm nobody's child
Just like a flower
I'm growing wild
No mummy's kisses
And no daddy's smile
Nobody wants me
I'm nobody's child
No mommy's arms to hold me
Or soothe me…

And Mother’s Lament - why oh why did my parents sing these to me?

A mother was washing her baby one night;
The youngest of ten and a delicate mite.
The mother was poor and the baby was thin;
'Twas naught but a skeleton covered with skin.
The mother turned 'round for a soap off the rack.
She was only a moment but when she got back
Her baby had gone, and in anguish she cried,
"Oh, where has my baby gone?" The angels replied
Oh, your baby has gone down the plug hole.
Oh, your baby has gone down the plug.
The poor little thing was so skinny and thin,
He should have been washed in a jug, in a jug.
Your baby is perfectly happy;
He won't need a bath anymore.
He's a-muckin' about with the angels above,
Not lost but gone before.

Not a Nursery Rhyme but a carol- Away in a Manger. The lines about bless all the little children in thy tender care and fit them for Heaven to live with thee there.
The 11 year old DD lost her fight to leukaemia years ago just before Christmas and that line makes me think of her and I always cry.

All The Pretty Little Horses. Creepy.

Lolimax

Teddy bear picnic, always creeped me out! I had some bears that sang it in unison when i was young, so weird

Thought of another one
Two Little Orphans
My mum really did sing some weird songs to us when we were young.
She also sang them to my dd's

Not really a children’s song, but the Coventry Carol. I’m obsessed with it; there are about 5 different versions on my Christmas Spotify playlist. But it’s so sad!

More of a folk song but Scarborough Fair is very haunting I think.

I used to sing The Connemara Cradle Song to mine. Their dad wasn’t a fisherman but he was in the merchant navy, so it kinda fitted.

My Mum would sing Scarlet Ribbons to me, so if I hear that I get a bit emotional.

@lilmishap

There was a version of Boys and girls come out to play on CBBC programme years ago Moondial I think? It's stayed with me for about 20 years

It was Dramarama on CITV. I remember it, it was creepy as hell. You can watch it on YouTube -

@coiner I don't think the plague explanation Ring a Ring o' Roses is generally considered true by folklorists - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_a_Ring_o%27_Roses#Meaning

The Coventry Carol - I actually have tears in my eyes whenever I hear it