Sarasponda

"Sarasponda" is a children's nonsense song which has been considered a popular campfire song. It is often described to be a spinning song, that is, a song that would be sung while spinning at the spinning wheel. It is frequently described as being of Dutch origin, and there is a bit of folklore that says Dutch mothers used it to teach their daughters to spin with the particular aim of finding a good husband. This origin is hard to verify, however.[1] The earliest known printed versions may be American collections from the 1940s. It is contained in the pocket songbook Sing It Again, published in 1944 by the Cooperative Recreation Service, and in Sing for the Fun of It, published by the Florida Methodist Youth Fellowship in the same decade.[1]

The words are sometimes said to be onomatopoeic, made up from the sound of the spinning wheel itself, “sarasponda, sarasponda, sarasponda", and then the sound of the foot pedal brake slowing down the wheel; "ret, set, set.”

Lyrics

The lyrics are variable and not written down with any consistent spelling, but this is a common version:

Sarasponda, sarasponda, sarasponda ret set set
Sarasponda, sarasponda, sarasponda ret set set
A doray-oh, A doray-boomday-oh
A doray-boomday ret set set
Ah say pah say oh.


At some camps, the "boom-da, boom-da, boom-da" has been replaced with "oonga, oonga, oonga." This version of Sarasponda was taught to girls at the Camp Nokewa Girl Scout camp in Rhode Island in the mid-1960s. 2019}}

An alternative interpretation is that this is an attempt at a phonetic transliteration of a Hungarian jingle, maybe an advertising jingle. The possible equivalences are: "saras ponda" is "szőrös bunda," meaning "hairy coat." "ret set set" is recece, the Hungarian equivalent of "falala." "A doray-oh" is "A dőri jó," meaning "the one from Dőr is good." "A doray-boomday-oh" is "A dőri bunda jó," meaning "the coat from Dőr is good." "Ah say pah say oh" is "Ez a passzió," meaning "this is the passion (rage or fad)." Bunda in Hungarian is a fur coat, usually a sheepskin coat worn by shepherds. Szőrös literally means hairy; in this case, it emphasizes that this is a fur, not a sheepskin coat. Dőr is a small town in western Hungary, northwest of Budapest, where presumably fur coats were being made and sold. Thus, "sarasponda" may not be a collection of nonsense syllables, but a transliteration of an advertisement for fur coats.

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References
  1. Kimberling, Clark. "Historical Notes for Solos for Treble Instrument Especially Soprano Recorder; Collection 5: Americana After 1865". IMSLP.org. International Music Score Library Project / Petrucci Music Library. Retrieved July 9, 2011.
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