Kayayı Gırcı Tuttu (İlvanlım) (Frost Took the Rock)
Story
The song opens with a scene from nature — frost (locally “gırcı”) settling on the rock — and moves from there into a tale of love. The refrain “İlvanlım” gives the song its name, repeated as a tender address to the beloved. The verses speak of the pain of an unrequited or thwarted love, of the beloved’s beauty, and of a heart that can look at no one else. With repeated cries of “aman aman” and “ilvanlım ilvanlım,” the song carries a character at once sorrowful and well suited to dance.
It takes the form of a “çevirme halay,” sung as people dance together in a turning line.
About
The sources describe it as a turning-halay dance song; it is an “oyun havası” (dance tune). Its region is the village of Çelebibağı in the Alaca district of Çorum. It is reported to have been collected on 1 June 1987 by Sümer Ezgü from the source singer Musa Yenilmez. It also appears in Levent Sezgin’s Çorum Halk Türküleri ve Oyun Havaları. For more on the Alaca district: /en/district/alaca
Lyrics
A representative excerpt of the song’s traditional (anonymous) words, given in English summary:
Frost took hold of the rock (ilvanlım, ilvanlım, aman aman);
love for you took hold of me.
Do not draw the bow of your brows —
my heart has caught fire (ilvanlım, aman aman).
(Refrain and verse variants differ from source to source.)