As a child my mother had a neighbor who was allegedly Russian. When my
mom visited this neighbor, she was (possibly) bounced on a knee and
sung a Russian nursery rhyme. I MUST have the text of that rhyme,
preferably in Russian AND English. We have no idea how to spell it,
but it begins, "Reeda reeda runka" and ends "Whoa, whoa, whoa." Mom
tells me the whoas (woofs?) were meant to be dogs barking. The
neighbor told her something about a big dog and then a little dog
barking at that point. If it would help, I could get my mom to type
out the whole thing phonetically.

I believe your neighbor's nursery rhyme was Scandinavian.

An old Swedish children's rhyme, "Rida Rida Ranka," ends with the
sounds of dogs barking. The same rhyme is known as "Ride Ride Ranke"
in Norwegian and in Danish. This is often chanted or sung while
bouncing a child on one's knee.

Here is one of many translations of "Rida Rida Ranka" (this is the
Swedish version):

Rida, rida ranka, 
Hästen heter Blanka 
Vart skall vi rida, 
Hem till att fria, 
Hos en Liten piga, 
Vad skall hon heta,
Anna Maja Greta, 
Den tjoka ock feta,
Nar vi kom dit, 
Var det ingen hemma,  
Mei än två små, 
hundar, som, 
Stog under bänken, 
Ock hamla på, 
hänken ock grala 
Woof, woof, woof.

Ride, ride, straight-backed 
The horse is named Blanka 
Where shall we ride 
Home to make a proposal 
To a little maid 
What's her name 
Anna Maja Greta 
The thick and fat 
When we got there 
There was nobody home 
More than two small 
dogs who 
sat under the bench 
[not sure about this] 
And howling 
Woof, woof, woof.

Roots Web
http://www.rootsweb.com/~ialyon/swanson.htm

Here are several discussions of the song that may be of interest to
you:

Norskland Forums
http://www.norskland.com/forums/forum04/messages/271.htm
http://www.norskland.com/forums/forum04/messages/313.htm
http://www.norskland.com/forums/forum05/messages/383.htm

Historylink
http://www.historylink.org/OHD_output.CFM?file_ID=37

Love to Learn Place: Nursery Rhymes
http://www.lovetolearnplace.com/Curriculum/NurseryRhymes.html

Newsgroup post, soc.genealogy.nordic
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&newwindow=1&safe=off&th=9faed333070ceece&rnum=2

Newsgroup post, soc.genealogy.nordic
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=%23xR%24r9yH%24GA.303%40cpmsnbbsa02&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain

Newsgroup post, soc.genealogy.nordic
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&newwindow=1&safe=off&selm=84l51l%2477c%241%40tron.sci.fi

Newsgroup post, soc.genealogy.nordic
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&newwindow=1&safe=off&th=c5e55d207cc1c9e2&rnum=6

Newsgroup post, soc.genealogy.nordic
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&newwindow=1&safe=off&th=37ae505df5066fa9&rnum=9

Here you can listen to the melody of "Ride Ride Ranke":

Abarol  Midimusikk
http://home.no.net/abarol/midiBarn/ride_ride_ranke.mid

My Google search strategy:

"ride ride ranke"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22ride+ride+ranke

"rida rida ranka"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22rida+rida+ranka

I hope this information is useful! If anything above is not clear, if
any of the links do not function, or if you are in need of further
assistance, please send a clarification request before rating my
answer.

Best wishes,
pinkfreud

---

Clarification of Answer by pinkfreud-ga on 24 Oct 2002 08:51 PDT

Lara,

I've found something that may interest you:

Rida, Rida Ranka poster
http://www.scandinavianmarket.com/browse.cfm/4,1382.html

Rida, Rida Ranka plate & mug
http://www.scandinavianmarket.com/browse.cfm/4,2941,1,13,360.html

If your mom has pleasant memories of this rhyme, these items would be
very nice little gifts!

~pinkfreud

---

Clarification of Answer by pinkfreud-ga on 24 Oct 2002 13:05 PDT

Lara,

Thank you very much for the five-star rating and for the bonus! 

Regarding my process for finding the information, I am an insatiably
curious person, and your description of the rhyme sounded vaguely
familiar, so I was intrigued. Since the search terms "reeda reeda
runka" did not produce any results, I tried a few guesses, and hit
upon "rida rida ranka." This led me to the variant, "ride ride ranke,"
and the multitude of interesting Scandinavian newsgroup posts.

Once I found the site with the audio file, I knew why the description
had sounded familiar to me. When I was in nursery school,
approximately fifty years ago, a cheerful nursery attendant named Risë
(who was, I believe, a Swedish immigrant) used to chant this song
while bouncing youngsters on her ample knee.

~pinkfreud

Pinkfreud, I am astounded. I really didn't expect such a wealth of
information. I thought I might be linked to some web page with the
text of the rhyme with possibly questionable accuracy. I really
appreciate knowing this information, and my mother will be thrilled.

I'm dying to know what your process was for finding this. I did a few
test searches -- took me half an hour -- and came up with such crap.
You really have to know what to ask, I guess. Any enlightenment?

Thanks a lot!
--Lara

that was pretty cool, finding this answer out!

:D  (amazed...)

Thanks again, Pinkfreud.

After I posted that question about your process, I noticed at the
bottom what your search terms had been. quite obvious, if I'd thought
about it more rather than giving up. I guess I needed to use more
variant spellings. Also, I made my search too specific "Russian
nursery rhyme rida runka." That got me junk since the rhyme is
Scandanavian. Learning, learning, all of the time.

--Lara

Dear Lara333:  

PinkFreud is an astounding researcher as you can tell!  ;)