“Magpie, Magpie, tell me, pray,
Where have you been?”
“Far away!”
“You built a fire,
And you cooked some mash,
You called your friends,
And here, in a flash,
A hungry brood
By the porch they stood.
You drew your spoon,
They held the noon.”
“Magpie, Magpie, tell me, dear,
Where have you been?”
“I've been near!”
“The squirrel had some,
And so did the hare,
The fox and the owl
They each got a share.
But the wolf in the hole
Got nothing at all.
His little grey soul
Got nothing at all!”
“He had fetched no water,
He had chopped no wood,
He had built no fire,
He had cooked no food!”
credits
from Lullabies,
released December 31, 2012
Music by Konstantin Konstantinov and Stanislav Ivanov.
Lyrics based upon the traditional Russian folk rhymes.
Retold in English by Irina Zheleznova and adapted by Stanislav Ivanov.