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 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 polytheism. 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 Christianized in order to show John Barleycorn as a Christ-like figure.

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. 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. 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.

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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. 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:

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 plowed, 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.

[edit] Adaptations

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.

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, Martin Carthy, the Watersons, Steeleye Span, Jethro Tull, Fairport Convention, The Minstrels of Mayhem, Frank Black, Chris Wood, Woody Lissauer, Maddy Prior, Heather Alexander, Tim van Eyken 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 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.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ As derived from: [1]

[edit] Recordings

  • Quadriga Consort CD "As I Walked Forth" ORF Early Music Edition, Vienna 2005

[edit] External links

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