Paidia tis Samarinas- Epirot Blues

The best recording of this Epirot folk-song, Paidia tis Samarinas, is by Savvas Siatras

I translated part of this song (from various traditional versions) for my book "The Ionian Islands and Epirus, A Cultural History" (pp184-185):

"Listen all you brave young klefts, you poor lads of Samarina,
When you go up to the mountains below Samarina,
Don't fire your guns, don't start singing songs!
(Even though you're stained with blood, lads);
And if my mother asks you, or my poor wretched sister,
Don't say that I got killed, don't tell them that I'm dead!
Tell them that I got married, that I'm hitched for life -
A stone slab for a mother-in-law, the black earth as my wife..."

I first heard this song at a panigyri in Vogatsiko, a Western Macedonian village, near Kastoria. Thanks Tasoula! I was the Regional Director of my organisation (for Northern Greece) for five years in the early '80s, and I got to know the area very well (Macedonia and Thrace, mostly).


Παιδια της Σαμαρινας Αλεκος Κιτσακης