John Barleycorn
"John Barleycorn" is an English and Scottish folk song. The song's protagonist is John Barleycorn, a personification of barley and of the beer made from it. In the song, he suffers indignities, attacks, and death that correspond to the various stages of barley cultivation, such as reaping and malting.
The song may have its origins in ancient English or Scottish folklore, with written evidence of the song dating it at least as far back as the Elizabethan era. It is listed as number 164 in the Roud Folk Song Index. The oldest versions are Scottish and include the Scots poem "Quhy Sowld Nocht Allane Honorit Be". In 1782, the Scottish poet Robert Burns published his own version of the song, which influenced subsequent versions.
The song survived into the twentieth century in the oral folk tradition, primarily in England, and many popular folk revival artists have recorded versions of the song. In most traditional versions, including the sixteenth century Scottish version entitled Alan-a-Maut, the plant's ill-treatment by humans and its re-emergence as beer to take its revenge are key themes.
History
Possible ancient origins
The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs, edited by the folk singer A. L. Lloyd and the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, ponders whether the ballad is "an unusually coherent folklore survival" or "the creation of an antiquarian revivalist, which has passed into popular currency and become 'folklorised. It has been theorised that the figure could have some relation to the semi-mythical wicker man ritual, which involves burning a man in effigy.A link between the mythical figure Beowa and John Barleycorn is suggested by the author Kathleen Herbert. In her 1994 book Looking for the Lost Gods of England, she suggests that Beowa and Barleycorn are one and the same, noting that the folksong details the suffering, death, and resurrection of Barleycorn, yet celebrates the "reviving effects of drinking his blood".
Written versions
The first song to personify Barley was called Allan-a-Maut, a Scottish song written prior to 1568.Allan is also the subject of "Quhy Sowld Nocht Allane Honorit Be", a fifteenth or sixteenth century Scots poem included in the Bannatyne Manuscript of 1568 and 17th century English broadsides.
"A Pleasant New Ballad" (1624)
The first mention of "John Barleycorn" as the character was in a 1624 London broadside entitled introduced as "A Pleasant New Ballad to sing Evening and morn, / Of the Bloody murder of Sir John Barley-corn". The following two verses are from this 1624 version:The final two verses of this 1624 version show Barleycorn's vengeance through intoxicating his killers:
Robert Burns (1782)
published his own version in 1782, which adds a more mysterious undertone and became the model for most subsequent versions of the ballad. Burns's version begins:Unlike other versions, Robert Burns makes John Barleycorn into a saviour:
Field recordings
Many field recordings of the song were made of traditional singers performing the song, mostly in England. In 1908, Percy Grainger used phonograph technology to record a Lincolnshire man named William Short singing the song; the recording can be heard on the British Library Sound Archive website. James Madison Carpenter recorded a fragment sung by a Harry Wiltshire of Wheald, Oxfordshire in the 1930s, which is available on the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library website as well as another version probably performed by a Charles Phelps of Avening, Gloucestershire. The Shropshire singer Fred Jordan was recorded singing a traditional version in the 1960s.A version recorded in Doolin, Co. Clare, Ireland from a Michael Flanagan in the 1970s is available courtesy of the County Clare Library.
The Scottish singer Duncan Williamson also had a traditional version which was recorded.
Helen Hartness Flanders recorded a version sung by a man named Thomas Armstrong of Mooers Forks, New York, USA in 1935.