In this lullaby the mother says she has lit three candles to Pîr İlyas for her child and asks him for his blessing on her little one. Haluk Yücel took the two lines in 2023 from Amasya Türküleri, the book by Burhan Özbakır and S. T. Sünbül (p. 152), and placed them in his article. Yücel gives them as one of three examples in which the word "pîr", saintly master, occurs in the songs of Amasya. In 2018 the same author, classifying the songs of Amasya, counted a work called "Ninni" as a kırık hava in 2/4; the two entries are taken here to refer to the same lullaby and are treated together.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; not in the TRT repertoire
  • Region: Amasya
  • Type: lullaby (ninni); a kırık hava in Yücel 2018
  • Metre: 2/4 (Yücel 2018, Table 6)
  • Mode (makam): unknown
  • Source performer, collector, date of collection: not in the quotations
  • Words and music: anonymous
  • Source publication: Burhan Özbakır and S. T. Sünbül, Amasya Türküleri, 2010, p. 152 (via Yücel 2023)
  • Links: no TRT link; Yücel 2023, Yücel 2018

Lyrics

Pîr İlyas'a üç mum yaktım,
Himmet etsin yavruma, ninni.

In English: I lit three candles for Pîr İlyas, may he not withhold his spiritual help from my little one, hush-a-bye. "Himmet" is the help a saint gives through prayer and grace. Yücel confines the lullaby to these two lines, and as the book itself could not be obtained, the rest could not be read.

In Amasya the name that comes to mind with Pîr İlyas is that of Şücâeddin İlyas, the sheikh who brought the Khalwati path to the city; his life and grave are described in the articles on Pir İlyas and on his tomb in Pirler. The source does not say outright that the pîr of the lullaby is he; this is simply the name's known referent in the city.

Story

No account has been passed on of whom the lullaby was collected from or how it was sung. The only event the words describe is the mother lighting candles to a pîr as a votive offering. On what occasion the candles were lit cannot be learned from two lines.

Musical Features

The one clue to the tune is in the 2018 metre table, where "Ninni" stands in the 2/4 column. In the 2023 article Yücel reserved his score analysis for four works chosen from the TRT repertoire and did not include the lullaby he took from the book. Its makam and range are therefore unknown.

Performers and Recordings

No singer, album or TRT recording of the lullaby is documented. Of the six works in which he found Alevi-Bektashi expressions, Yücel notes that only "Neylersin" and this lullaby are found in the book rather than in the TRT repertoire.

Collections and Variants

A second lullaby published from Amasya is the "Hicaz Ninni" that Fatih Koca collected in 2015 from the mevlid reciter Hacı Asiye Akbaş. It too is written in 2/4, but its words are different: it opens "Bizi yoktan var etti / Hak habibine eyler hürmet", "He made us from nothing / God honours His beloved", and its refrain runs "Nenni Muhammedim nenni / Uyur can Ahmedim nenni". Pîr İlyas's name does not occur in Koca's score. Without seeing the full text of the lullaby in the book, it cannot be said whether the two entries belong to the same tune. For a broad account of the region's melodies, lullabies, laments and folk songs among them: The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Official sources

  • Burhan Özbakır and S. T. Sünbül, Amasya Türküleri, Amasya: Amasya Belediyesi, 2010, p. 152 (quoted from Yücel 2023; not seen directly).

Online sources