When you fall asleep, dear little one, a grey wolf will emerge from the wild forest and will grab you straight from your bed. Back to the forest he will drag you and will deposit you under a willow tree. But there is no need to fear, for here are some stern words for the wolf not to harm you. So, dear babe of mine, hush, you can go to sleep now.
So goes one of the melancholy lullabies I remember from my Russian childhood, and which I have been singing to my own children over the years out of habit, out of love, and out of the sense that at the end of the day, as they fall asleep, songs in a language they do not know still somehow speak more powerfully than spoken words in a language familiar to them.
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