John Barleycorn

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For the novel by Jack London, see John Barleycorn (novel).
Traffic's album John Barleycorn Must Die contains a well known version of the John Barleycorn folksong.
Traffic's album John Barleycorn Must Die contains a well known version of the John Barleycorn folksong.

John Barleycorn is an English folksong. The character "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.

Some have interpreted the story of John Barleycorn as representing a pagan rite.[citation needed] 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. The reasoning behind this idea is that John Barleycorn represented the ideology of nature cycles, spirits and the harvest of the pagan religion (and may have represented human sacrifice also) but that the song was Christianised in order to show John Barleycorn as a Christ-like figure. Barleycorn, the personification of corn, 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. Compare this with the Christian concepts of the Sacrament and of Transubstantiation and it is not difficult to imagine how the song might have been beneficial to Christianity.

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[edit] 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.

[edit] Robert Burns' version

Burns's version goes as follows:

There was three kings into the east,
  Three kings both great and high,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
  John Barleycorn should die.
They took a plough and plough'd him down,
  Put clods upon his head,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
  John Barleycorn was dead.
But the cheerful Spring came kindly on,
  And show'rs began to fall;
John Barleycorn got up again,
  And sore surpris'd them all.
The sultry suns of Summer came,
  And he grew thick and strong,
His head weel arm'd wi' pointed spears,
  That no one should him wrong.
The sober Autumn enter'd mild,
  When he grew wan and pale;
His bending joints and drooping head
  Show'd he began to fail.
His colour sicken'd more and more,
  He faded into age;
And then his enemies began
  To show their deadly rage.
They've taen a weapon, long and sharp,
  And cut him by the knee;
Then ty'd him fast upon a cart,
  Like a rogue for forgerie.
They laid him down upon his back,
  And cudgell'd him full sore;
They hung him up before the storm,
  And turn'd him o'er and o'er.
They filled up a darksome pit
  With water to the brim,
They heaved in John Barleycorn,
  There let him sink or swim.
They laid him out upon the floor,
  To work him farther woe,
And still, as signs of life appear'd,
  They toss'd him to and fro.
They wasted, o'er a scorching flame,
  The marrow of his bones;
But a Miller us'd him worst of all,
  For he crush'd him between two stones.
And they hae taen his very heart's blood,
  And drank it round and round;
And still the more and more they drank,
  Their joy did more abound.
John Barleycorn was a hero bold,
  Of noble enterprise,
For if you do but taste his blood,
  'Twill make your courage rise.
'Twill make a man forget his woe;
  'Twill heighten all his joy:
'Twill make the widow's heart to sing,
  Tho' the tear were in her eye.
Then let us toast John Barleycorn,
  Each man a glass in hand;
And may his great posterity
  Ne'er fail in old Scotland!

Burns's version makes the tale somewhat mysterious and, although not the original, it became the model for most subsequent versions of the ballad.

[edit] Other variants

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.

The figure of John Barleycorn is reproached in the song John Barleycorn, my Jo (based on a different Robert Burns poem, 'John Anderson'), for the misfortunes that come from drink:

John Barleycorn, my jo, John when we were first acquaint
I had money in my pocket John but noo, ye ken I want
I spent it all in treating John because I loved you so
And look ye how you've cheated me John Barleycorn my jo.[1]

[edit] Performances

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 Bert Jansch, The John Renbourn Group, Martin Carthy, the Watersons, Steeleye Span, Jethro Tull, Fairport Convention, The Minstrels of Mayhem, Frank Black, Chris Wood, Woody Lissauer, Maddy Prior, and many other performers. Jack London gave the title John Barleycorn to his 1913 autobiographical novel that tells of his struggle with alcoholism.

The song is frequently cited by devotees 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. Masonic symbolism may be a source of the trials of John Barleycorn as set forth in the Burns version. Burns became a Freemason in 1781 [1], and a ritual death and rebirth does form a part of some Masonic rituals. If there is occult symbolism in the poem, this may be the source.

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. Burns, remaking the poem into a celebration of whisky, chose not to dwell on Barleycorn's vengeance.

As noted on the Traffic album, "there are many other interpretations." The imagery of torture and repression can be applied to royal persecution of populist egalitarian movements such as the Levellers as well as Christian repression of pagan spiritual practices.[citation needed] Rebel sympathizers can at least take solace in the grain beverage which is indisputedly referred to in the last verse of the song.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ John Barleycorn, my Jo at the Digital Tradition.

[edit] External links

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