Votian and ingrian folk songs

“Brother’s war tale” is one of the best known epic songs of Votians and other Baltic-Finnic people. The version given here says nothing about the brother’s leaving for war and return, but is limited to the part where the mother teaches her son not to rush ahead or stay behind of others but move in the middle, because the “middle ones will be returning home”.

Oudekki Figurova has told that the song was customarily sung by women who had gathered together to send a recruit off to war: Naizõd laulotti, kuza õlti parvõza. Enne laulotti nekrutilla, ku õlti saattamaz. Enne õli rihi täün vättšeä, ku poik meni sõtamehess. (‘Women used to sing it, when they had come together. They sang it to a recruit while sending him away. The room used to be packed with people when someone’s son was sent off to war’.)

The chorus of the melody by Duńa Trofimova is derived from Russian game songs: раз, калина моя, раз, малина моя. Duńa herself did not use the tune to sing “Brother’s war tale” (for the recording of the melody, see the song Ku miä õlin peeni poika, Children’s songs and chastushki).