John Barleycorn

"John Barleycorn" is an English folksong. The character of John Barleycorn in the song is a personification of the important cereal crop barley, and of the alcoholic beverages made from it, beer and whisky. In the song, John Barleycorn is represented as suffering attacks, death, and indignities that correspond to the various stages of barley cultivation, such as reaping and malting.

Origins

Some have interpreted the story of John Barleycorn as representing a pagan practice. It has also been suggested that "John Barleycorn", or rather an early form of the song, may have been used by the early church in Saxon England to ease the conversion of pagans to Christianity from their native Anglo-Saxon paganism.

Kathleen Herbert draws a link between Beowa (a figure appearing in early Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies whose name means "barley") and the figure of John Barleycorn of traditional English folksong. Herbert says that Beowa and Barleycorn are one and the same, noting that the folksong details the suffering, death, and resurrection of Barleycorn, yet also celebrates the "reviving effects of drinking his blood."^[1]

Barleycorn, the personification of the barley, encounters great suffering before succumbing to an unpleasant death. However, as a result of this death bread can be produced; therefore, Barleycorn dies so that others may live. Finally his body will be eaten as the bread. A popular hymn, "We Plough the Fields and Scatter", is often sung at Harvest Festival to the same tune.

As shown above, the point of the tale told by the original versions is twofold: it focuses not only on the death and resurrection of John Barleycorn, but also on Barleycorn's revenge upon the tradesmen who misused him.

Versions and variants

Countless versions of this song exist. A version of the song is included in the Bannatyne Manuscript of 1568, and English broadside versions from the 17th century are common. Robert Burns published his own version in 1782, and modern versions abound. Burns's version makes the tale somewhat mysterious and, although not the original, it became the model for most subsequent versions of the ballad.

Burns's version begins:

Wikisource has original text related to this article: John Barleycorn

There was three kings into the east,
   Three kings both great and high,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
   John Barleycorn should die.

An early English version runs thus:

There was three men come out o' the west their fortunes for to try,
And these three men made a solemn vow, John Barleycorn must die,
They ploughed, they sowed, they harrowed him in, throwed clods upon his head,
And these three men made a solemn vow, John Barleycorn was dead.

Earlier versions resemble Burns's only in personifying the barley, and sometimes in having the barley be foully treated or murdered by various artisans. Burns' version, however, omits their motives. In an early seventeenth century version, the mysterious kings of Burns's version were in fact ordinary men laid low by drink, who sought their revenge on John Barleycorn for that offence:

Sir John Barley-Corn fought in a Bowl,
   who won the Victory,
Which made them all to chafe and swear,
   that Barley-Corn must dye.

Another early version features John Barleycorn's revenge on the miller:

Mault gave the Miller such a blow,
That from [h]is horse he fell full low,
He taught him his master Mault for to know
   you neuer saw the like sir.

Adaptations

The song is frequently cited by supporters of Sir James George Frazer and his well known work The Golden Bough as being evidence of the antiquity and survival of the institution of the Frazer sacred king and spirit of vegetation, who died as a human sacrifice in a fertility rite.

Many versions of the song have been recorded, most notably by Traffic, whose album John Barleycorn Must Die is named after the song. The song has also been recorded by Fire + Ice, Gae Bolg, Bert Jansch, The John Renbourn Group, Pentangle, Finest Kind, Martin Carthy, Martyn Bates in collaboration with Max Eastley, the Watersons, Steeleye Span, Jethro Tull, Fairport Convention, The Minstrels of Mayhem, Oysterband, Frank Black, Chris Wood, Woody Lissauer, Quadriga Consort, Maddy Prior, Heather Alexander, Tim van Eyken and many other performers, most recently by The Sandcarvers (2009). Jack London gave the title John Barleycorn to his 1913 autobiographical novel that tells of his struggle with alcoholism. The song is also a central part of Simon Emmerson's The Imagined Village project. Martin and Eliza Carthy perform the song alongside Paul Weller on The Imagined Village album. Billy Bragg sang in Weller's place on live performances.

John Barleycorn is also a character in the Chumbawamba song "Lord Bateman's Motorbike", featured on their album The Boy Bands Have Won, although serving more as a metaphor for the British working class than previous uses.

John Barleycorn is also noted many times in the works published by Alcoholics Anonymous.

See also

• Byggvir
• Corn dolly
• Freyr or Ing, Germanic fertility God.
• Hærfest-mónaþ
• Harvest
• Sceafa
• Sif
• Vanir, Germanic Gods of the land.
• Yule Goat

Notes

References

• Herbert, Kathleen (2007). Looking for the Lost Gods of England. Anglo-Saxon Books. ISBN 1-898281-04-1

Recordings

• Martin Carthy & Dave Swarbrick LP/CD "Byker Hill", 1967

Traffic LP 1967

• Martin Carthy LP/CD "Sweet Wivelsfield", 1981
• Barry Dransfield CD "Be Your Own Man", 1994
• Finest Kind CD "Silks & Spices", 2003
• Jethro Tull CD "A Little Light Music", 1992
• John Renbourn Group CD "A Maid n Bedlam", 1977
• John Renbourn Group CD "Live in America", 1982
• Quadriga Consort CD "As I Walked Forth" ORF Early Music Edition, Vienna 2005
• The Sandcarvers CD "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot", 2009
• Steeleye Span LP/CD "Below The Salt", 1972/1989
• The Watersons CD "Frost and Fire", 1977
• The Young Tradition CD "Galleries/Chicken on a Raft/No Relation", 1977

External links

• "Two versions of John Barleycorn" and an accompanying MIDI