Stravinsky noted that the closest English parallel of "Pribaoutki" is probably "limerick." The word refers to a kind of game, "a form of popular Russian verse" in which a short group of lines is added to word by word by the players in rapid succession. Stravinsky was very familiar with Russian folk text sources and used them in several of his compositions.

The songs are scored for voice, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, violin, viola, cello, and double bass. Pribaoutki consists of four songs, entitled, in English: "Kornillo," "Natashka," "The Colonel," and "The Old Man and the Hare." Stravinsky insisted that a man should sing the voice part, and apparently the composer had his brother Gury, a baritone, in mind when he composed the songs. The text, as in most of Stravinsky's works with text, is set syllabically. The melodies are composed in Stravinsky's modular style; that is, they consist of short segments, with limited pitch content, that are repeated in varying patterns. Eric White also notes, significantly, that while Pribaoutki sounds as though Stravinsky borrowed melodies from folk music, his melodies are actually entirely original. This is the case for a number of his works composed around the same time. Pribaoutki prefigures the masterful Les noces, composed between 1914 and 1923, in which Stravinsky's profound knowledge of folk melodies inspired a large-scale work of wonderful, original folk tunes. Pribaoutki features mostly diatonic vocal melodies combined with a chromatically colored accompaniment from the chamber ensemble.



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