Čebelica Maja

This is not a Slovenian folk song at all, but generations of Slovenian children know it by heart: it is the Slovenian-language theme to the “Maya the Bee” cartoon. It opens like a fairy tale — once, long ago, in a land we really don’t know where — and introduces its heroine, a little bee with a lovely name who is “little, clever and cheeky” and flies wherever she pleases, before turning to her and asking her to tell us about herself.

Its history is European rather than local. The music was written by the Czech composer Karel Svoboda, who wrote some eighty songs for the singer Karel Gott, and the German words by Florian Cusano; Gott’s recording of “Die Biene Maja” was released as a single in 1977 and became the theme of the German version of the series. In Slovenia the song was sung by Janko Ropret — two of his versions with different Slovenian words circulate, and the one here is the text carried by the Slovenske narodne pesmi archive. Who wrote the Slovenian words is not recorded; the lyrics sites that print them leave the Slovenian lyricist blank. Like the show it introduces, the song crossed borders effortlessly, and in Slovenia the bright, buzzing tune and the picture of the free-flying little bee have made it as beloved as any home-grown children’s song.