Collection Information: Bedtime was collected on May 22nd, 2014 in Dallas, Texas. It belongs to a sub-genre of nursery rhymes called fingerplay.
Informant: The informant was Allie Wood, a 17 year old female. Allie was born and raised in Dallas, TX, and she is currently a high school student. Her mother is an elementary school teacher and her father is an attorney. She has one older brother.
Text:
Time for bed, time for bed, (child gets into bed)
Fluff up the pillow, (child picks up pillow and fluffs it)
Lay down your head. (child puts pillow down and rests head on it)
Pull up the blanket, (child covers him or herself in the blanket)
Tuck it in tight. (caretaker tucks in the sides of the blanket)
Close your eyes (child closes eyes)
And sleep all night. (caretaker kisses child on cheek)
Context: Things fingerplay is to be performed when putting a child to bed. Usually, the caretaker and child sing it together as they perform the accompanying steps towards going to bed. Even when their parents were out for the night and they had a babysitter, they
Meaning and Interpretation: This is a fairly straight-forward and simple piece of folklore with a purely pragmatic meaning. Its purpose is to make the process of going to bed fun. Allie recalled that it did not have any significant traditional origin behind it, it was just something she remembered doing with her parents every night before bed. Her parents also used this as a way of having a concrete cutoff for when activities were supposed to end and bedtime began. They had a rule that once the song had been sung, there was no more getting out of bed until the morning. This rule helped them get Allie and her brother to develop good habits such as being sure to go to the bathroom and making sure they were not hungry or thirsty before going to bed.
Collector’s Information: Chris Faulkner, Dartmouth ’14, Russian 13, Professor Mikhail Gronas, Spring 2014
