Herding songs
        Herding songs make up a considerable portion of the repertoire of work songs. They are further categorized according to who sings them and by subject matter. Shepherd songs are sung by children, while nightherding songs are sung by adults. Shepherd songs can further be categorized into hollos and signals; verkavimai, or laments to the sun, clouds or the wind; raliavimai (warbles) intended to quiet the animals; songs bemoaning the difficult lot of orphans; children's songs about animals, beasts and birds which the shepherds would sing while resting. There are two subcategories of nightherding songs: ones for tending oxen, and the others for pasturing horses.
        The shepherding songs reflect some important aspects of rural life: the actual tending of animals, the social situation of children, as well as references to ancient beliefs. There are humorous shepherd songs, which do not contain any biting mockery, but are good-natured gibes, with scenes from the everyday life of a shepherd. The most archaic and most closely related to the task of herding are the hollos and signals, laments and warbles.
        The most primitive forms of shepherding folklore are hollos and signals, used to call and calm the animals, and for communication between the shepherds. Frequently they consist of onomatopoeia, such as kir-ga-ga, ralio, ëdro ëdro, stingo, uzz birr, etc. Melodically the hollos are very simple, usually consisting of short motifs composed of thirds and fourths.
         The recitative-like melodies of shepherds' verkavimai are akin to funeral laments. The shepherds bewail their fate and ask mother Sun to warm them, or the clouds to move on.
        The raliavimai or warbles are also recitative type melodies, distinguished by the vocable ralio, which is meant to calm the animals. The raliavimai have no set poetic or musical form. They are free recitatives, unified by the refrains. Some warbles end in a prolonged ululation, based on a major or minor third.

        The melodies of nightherding songs have certain common stylistic characteristics. Many have a galloping rhythm and tell a love story.
        Songs for herding oxen dealt with the job at hand. They were often sung by women, since they were the ones doing the herding. Images of young love were common; some about reciprocal love, others about the heartbreak of a jilted girl. The melodies are lyrical.
        Horse pasturing songs were sung by men since the men were the ones who rode out at night. They are songs of love and relationships among young people.
 

Ploughing songs
 

        The cycle of fieldwork on the farm begins with ploughing. Compared to others song genres, not many ploughing songs have been written down. From a poetic standpoint they are among the most artistically interesting of Lithuanian lyrical folk songs. They describe the work itself, as well as rural life. Often relationships between young people and the love between a boy and a girl are described. The melodies do not have any common characteristics and these work songs are not musically related to the movement of the work being done. However, the rhythm of the song could be coordinated with the step of the ploughman.
 

Haymaking songs
 

        A great number of haymaking songs have been recorded in Lithuania. They are also subcategorized into hay mowing and raking songs. Many songs combine both topics. Hay raking songs are more melancholy than the mowing songs, and they often contain imagery about an orphan girl. Other songs describe all of the tasks associated with haymaking, beginning with the mowing and ending with the feeding of the hay to the animals. Haymaking songs often personify a clover or other beautifully blossoming flower, and often contain references to love. Young peoples' feeelings are expressed through the images of the haymaking process. For example, the song "Ein bernelis per lankelæ" (There goes a lad through the field) tells of of a brother working in the field with a steel scythe. He plans to mow the clover and adorn his hat with it before enticing the young maiden. In contrast to these love songs are songs focusing on the topic of war. They ruefully sing of the brother who must go off to the great war. Many songs tell off the rounding up of recruits, which shows that these songs are from the first half of the 19th century.
        Refrains are common in haymaking songs. The most common vocable used is valio, hence-- valiavimas, the term for the singing of haymaking songs. The vocable is sung slowly and broadly, evoking the spacious fields and the mood of the haymaking season.
        Haymaking songs evidence two distinct stages in their melodic development. The melodies of earlier origin are similar to other early work songs, especially rye harvesting songs, which take a central position in the work song repertoire. Later haymaking songs have a wider modal range and are structurally more complex. Most are in major and are homophonic. However, both types of songs contain the vocable valio--in the northern Highlands (Aukðtaitija) as well as in the Lowlands (Þemaitija).

Rye harvesting songs
 

        One of the most important stages in the agricultural cycle is the harvesting of rye, therefore it is quite natural that the most abundant repertoire of work songs is related to rye. Some songs actually tell of the harvesting of rye, while others do not even mention it. The harvesting of the rye is metaphorically portrayed by the image of a driven, running row. Work is portrayed in two ways. In some songs it is considered noble, while in others the reverse is depicted, stressing the difficulty of the work; the mood is doleful and sad. In the songs that make no mention of the harvesting of rye, love and marriage are the prevailing topics. Images of nature are very frequent, often making up an entire independent branch to a song. Family relationships between parents and children are often discussed, with special emphasis on the hard lot of the daughter-in law in a patriarchal family. Orphans are empathized with. Once in a while we encounter the topic of war, others contain mythological elements. In humorous songs specific villages are mentioned, mocking the young residents, the poor harvest, the inept masters, the surly mowers, etc.
        The rye harvest concluded with a celebration, which centered on the weaving of a wreath, taking it home and presenting it to the master. This wreaths made of ears of rye, are called ievaras or jovaras in the songs.
        The most important element of rye harvesting songs is their unique melodic style, determined by the close connection to ritual and the function of the work. The embodiment of the style can be found in southeastern Lithuania—Dzûkija, which borders Belarus. The modal-tonal structure of some of these songs revolves around a minor third, while others are built on a major tetrachord. Both of these types have numerous variants.
 

Oat harvesting, flax and buckwheat pulling and hemp gathering songs
 

        Rye harvesting songs ar also closely related to other work songs: oat harvesting, pulling buckwheat and flax. The same kinds of circumstances surrounded all of these tasks, which were all performed by women. They also have rhythmic and tonal structures in common, which attests to their antiquity.
        Some buckwheat and oat harvesting songs have distinct texts and consistent melodies, however, just as in the rye harvesting songs, some of them never mention the work being done. Oat harvesting songs sing of the lad and the maid, of love and marriage. The function of the song can be determined from the melody. Others songs do mention the work process, naming almost every step: sowing, harrowing, cultivating, reaping, binding, stacking, transporting, threshing, milling, and even eating. In addition to he monophonic oat harvesting songs of Dzûkija, there are quite a few archaic polyphonic songs—sutartinës from northern Aukðtaitija, which are directly related to the job of growing oats.
        Buckwheat pulling songs, which are found only in Dzûkija, do not mention the work. The only reason we know that they are sung while pulling buckwheat is from the singers' explanations. Very often we encounter busy bees in the lyrics, which parallel young maidens busy at their weaving.
        One of the most popular crops in Lithuania is flax, which accounts for the multitutde of songs associated with pulling flax and communal flax breaking. Flax pulling songs more or less reflect the cycle of tasks of cultivating and harvesting the flax. Linen objects are referred to affectionately. In some songs the images of growing and working the flax are seen through the relationship of a boy and his girl. Humorous flax pulling songs make fun of idlers.
        Hemp gathering songs closely resemble flax pulling songs. Hemp is sung about in much the same way as the flax.
 

Milling songs
 

        Milling songs are among the oldest work songs. The 
The chronicler Aleksandras Gvaninis wrote of Lithuanian milling songs in the 16th century. The genre can be identified by characteristic refrains and vocables, such as zizui malui, or malu malu. They suggest the hum of the millstones as well as the rhythm of the milling. Milling was done by women, and the lyrics are about the woman's life, as well as the work itself. They sing about the millstones, about the difficulty of the work, about feelings of love, about family relationships. Very often milling songs begin with the formula phrase, "Malu malu að viena" (I mill, I mill all alone), followed by a text reminiscent of orphans' songs. Milling songs have no traditional melodies, but they are characteristically slow, composed, the melodic rhythm varies little. They are closely related to their work function.

Spinning and weaving songs
 

        Spinning and weaving songs are the most important of the songs about work done in the home. The imagery of both is very simialar and it is not always easy to distinguish one from the other. In spinning songs the main topic is the spinning itself, the spinner, and the spinning wheel. In some there are humorous references to the tow or the lazy spinners who have not mastered the art of spinning and weaving by the time they are to be married. Some spinning songs are cheerful and humorous, while others resemble the milling songs which bemoan the woman's hard lot and longing for their homes and parents. These songs have characteristic melodies. There are also highly unique spinning sutartinës (polyphonic songs), typified by clear and strict rhythms. The texts describe the work process, while the refrains mimic the whirring of the spinning wheel.
        The main imagery of weaving songs is the weaving process, the weaver, the loom, the delicate linens. Since the girls were usually weaving linens to fill their wedding trousseaux, the weaving process was highly poeticized. Weaving songs, like spinning songs, have no characteristic melodies associated with them.
 

Laundering songs
 

        Song which are sung while laundering and bleaching are interesting and unique, but rather infrequent. The bleaching process receives more attention than the laundering. Sometimes the refrain imitates the sounds of the beetle and mangle—the laundering tools. The songs often hyperbolyze images of the mother-in-law's outlandish demands, such as using the sea instead of a beetle, and the sky in place of a mangle, and the treetops for drying. But the daughter-in-law protests, that she is not a fish who swims in the sea, a bird who flits among the trees, and she is not the moon, which whirls through the sky. 
 

Fishing songs
 

        Fishing songs are about the sea, the bay, the fisherman, his boat, the net, and they often mention seaside place names, such as Klapëda or Rusnë. Some songs depict the fishing process: "three fisherman ar fishing in the Korkø floodplain, catching bream, the bream spawn, and the zander are leaping." The emotions of young people in love are often portrayed in ways that are unique only to fishing songs. For example, as two brothers went fishing, the didn't catch a pike, but a young maiden. The monophonic melodies are typical of singing traditions of the seaside regions of Lithuania.
 

Hunting songs
 

        There aren't many hunting songs and not much is known about their evolution or the time and place they were to be sung. Unique polyphonic hunting songs—sutartinës are believed to be very old. Hunting motifs are very clearly expressed—one tells of a rabbit shot in the forest, in another it is urged that the greyhounds be released to chase the rabbit, deer or sable.
 

Berry picking and mushroom gathering songs
 

        These are singular songs. Berry picking songs describe young girls picking berries, meeting boys and their conversations. Mushroom gathering songs can be humorous, making light of the process of gathering and cooking the mushrooms, describing the "war" of the mushrooms or their "weddings."

Compiled by Skirmantë Valiulytë
August 8, 1998

References:

1. Burkðaitienë, L. & Kriðtopaitë, D. (1990). Aukðtaièiø melodijos [The melodies of Aukðtaitija]. Vilnius: Vaga.
2. Èetkauskaitë, G. (1981). Dzûkø melodijos [The melodies of Dzûkija]. Vilnius: Vaga.
3. Èiurlionytë, J. (1969). Lietuviø liaudies dainø melodikos bruoþai [The melodic characteristics of Lithuanian folksongs]. Vilnius: Vaga. 
4. Jonynas, A. (1962). Lietuviø tautosaka: Dainos [Lithuanian folklore: Songs] vol. 1. Vilnius: Vaga.
5. Misevièienë, V. & Puteikienë Z. (1993). Lietuviø liaudies dainynas [Collection of Lithuanian folk songs] vol. 6: Darbo dainos (1) [Work songs]. Vilnius: Vaga.
6. Sauka, D. (1982). Lietuviø tautosaka [Lithuanian folklore]. Vilnius: Vaga. 

Compiled by Skirmantë Valiulytë