If the Spanish-speaking world has one shared lullaby, this is it - and unusually for a "traditional" song, we know exactly who wrote it: Ismael Parraguez, a schoolteacher and poet from Chile, published it in a 1907 collection for children. He died ten years later; his song went on to conquer a continent and lose his name along the way. We put it back.
The song runs on : cuando tienen hambre, cuando tienen frío
- when they are hungry, when they are cold. Notice that Spanish is hungry and cold with tener, not ser: you HAVE hunger, you HAVE cold. Sing this a few times and you will never say estoy hambre again.
One word of the 1907 text has drifted: Parraguez wrote les presta abrigo - the hen lends them shelter - with in its old sense of shelter or warmth, the same word that now mostly means an overcoat. The chicks sleeping acurrucaditos - all snuggled up - under her wings is the diminutive doing what Spanish diminutives do best.