Slovenian Folk Lullabies: Analysis of the Lullaby Texts and Their Functions

The evening ritual of putting a child to sleep, as we know it in Slovenia today, originates from the period of bourgeois family formation. An important part of this ritual is the lullaby. The archaic form of calming with rhythm (rocking) and droning is much older than the middle-class family. When falling asleep, the child is in a liminal state, and by singing a lullaby the singer is also in a liminal state. The analysis of texts of selected Slovene folk lullabies showed that lullabies are constructed in an oneiric manner and are therefore liminal. The analysis relied primarily on Freudian psychoanalytic thought.