Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis

The article is devoted to the new comparative ethnographic and ethno-musicological research results on Polish and Lithuanian spring carols, paying special attention for their ritual, genre, and parallelisms features. This genre of songs is classified in Polish folkloristic studies among carols, as the customs of going from door to door with łałymki and with Christmas carols have many analogies and many shared phrases; however, Christmas and spring carols are separate phenomena as regards their tunes and specific choruses. Author presents an initial analysis of both the rich symbolism of the rhymes and a musical typology of this song genre. Certain tune and rhyme types of łałymki are found both in Lithuania, Byelorussia and in Poland, even in distant locations.