Καλλιτεχνικός Σύλλογος Δημοτικής Μουσικής Δόμνα Σαμίου

A song encountered throughout the Greek world. That it has even survived among the Greek-speaking inhabitants of Corsica has prompted S. Baud-Bovy to conclude that the song predates 1675, the year in which Maniots sailed there from the Peloponnese. N.G. Politis has posited that the brothers were initially warriors, which would make the song part to the Byzantine Akritic cycle.

The ancient motif of siblings or spouses who meet and fail to recognize one another with tragic or near-tragic results figures frequently in myth and song. When the siblings are male, the meeting ends with one or both dying at the other’s hand. When they are man and woman, the danger of corrupt union hangs over them, which is usually averted by recognition at the twelfth hour (See also songs Three lords a-sitting, A little shorty (Meli, Asia Minor), A little shorty (Skiathos)). That this timeless collective fear should prevail over every other would seem indicative of social fluidity, reflecting their creators’ trepidation in the face of the threatened dissolution of their families and communities due to war, invasion, capture, forced enlistment, displacement etc. Miranda Terzopoulou (2008)

Live recording from the concert The Known and Unknown Domna at the Megaron, the Athens Concert Hall, in 29/10/1998.

Domna Samiou learned the song from the Chiot chanter, Zacharias Mikedis, in the 1960s.

Watch a different version of the song by Domna Samiou