----- Original Message -----
From: Norm Cohen <[log in to unmask]>
<<The song in your Haggadah (mine too) is "Chad Gadya" (= "An Only Kid").
It
first appeared in the Prague Haggadah of 1590. In Glatzer's Haggadah
commentary he states that the words (Aramaic with a smattering of Hebrew)
were composed no earlier than the 15th c., reminiscent of certain types of
medieval German folksongs. But whether the Passover song came from a
German antecedent or vice versa has been argued.
[snip] The chant, a fine early example of the
accumulative story, bears comparison with an English folktale, "The Old
Woman and her Pig," but a stretch of imagination is needed to connect the
subject matter with the nuptials of the tattered man and forlorn
milkmaid...."
None of this really answers your question, but an irrelevant answer is
better than none....>>
Maybe not so irrelevant -- the piece Helen Creighton collected was from
Danny Slauenwhite of the town of Northwest, Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia,
an area originally settled by Germans. Slauenwhite was one of the few German
speakers remaining; collecting from him was made more difficult by the fact
that he was stone deaf.
So we have a definite German connection. Without data, it's hard to guess
which song, Passover or German, came first, but I'm going to make a small
bet on a German folksong. Let's see what else can be found.
Peace,
Paul
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