Barley-break.
Mr. Strutt, the indefatigable historian of the “Sports and Pastimes of the People of England,” says of Barley-break: “The excellency of this sport seems to have consisted in running well, but I know not its properties.” Beyond this Mr. Strutt merely cites Dr. Johnson’s quotation of two lines from sir Philip Sidney, as an authority for the word. Johnson, limited to a mere dictionary explanation, calls it “a kind of rural play; a trial of swiftness.”
Sidney, in his description of the rural courtship of Urania by Strephon, conveys a sufficient idea of “Barley-break.” The shepherd seeks the society of his mistress wherever he thinks it likely to find her.
Nay ev’n unto her home he oft would go,
Where bold and hurtless many play he tries;
Her parents liking well it should be so,
For simple goodness shined in his eyes:
Then did he make her laugh in spite of woe
So as good thoughts of him in all arise;
While into none doubt of his love did sink,
For not himself to be in love did think.
This “sad shepherd” held himself towards Urania according to the usual custom and manner of lovers in such cases.
For glad desire, his late embosom’d guest,
Yet but a babe, with milk of sight he nurst:
Desire the more he suckt, more sought the breast
Like dropsy-folk, still drink to be athirst;
Till one fair ev’n an hour ere sun did rest,
Who then in Lion’s cave did enter first,
By neighbors pray’d, she went abroad thereby
At Barley-break her sweet swift foot to try.
Never the earth on his round shoulders bare
A maid train’d up from high or low degree,
That in her doings better could compare
Mirth with respect, few words with courtesie,
A careless comeliness with comely care,
Self-guard with mildness, sport with majesty
Which made her yield to deck this shepherd’s band:
And still, believe me, Strephon was at hand.
Then couples three be straight allotted there,
They of both ends the middle two do fly;
The two that in mid-place, Hell,[9] called were,
Must strive with waiting foot, and watching eye,
To catch of them, and them to Hell to bear,
That they, as well as they, Hell may supply
Like some which seek to salve their blotted name
With other’s blot, till all do taste of shame.
There you may see, soon as the middle two
Do coupled towards either couple make,
They false and fearful do their hands undo,
Brother his brother, friend doth his friend forsake,
Heeding himself, cares not how fellow do,
But of a stranger mutual help doth take:
As perjured cowards in adversity,
With sight of fear, from friends to fremb’d[10] doth fly,
The game being played out with divers adventurers
All to second Barley-break again are bent.
During the second game, Strephon was chased by Urania.
Strephon so chased did seem in milk to swim;
He ran, but ran with eye o’er shoulder cast,
More marking her, than how himself did go,
Like Numid’s lions by the hunters chased,
Though they do fly, yet backwardly do glow
With proud aspect, disdaining greater haste:
What rage in them, that love in him did show;
But God gives them instinct the man to shun,
And he by law of Barley-break must run.
Urania caught Strephon, and he was sent by the rules of the sport to the condemned place, with a shepherdess, named Nous, who affirmed
————— it was no right, for his default,
Who would be caught, that she should go—
But so she must. And now the third assault
Of Barley-break.———
Strephon, in this third game, pursues Urania; Klaius, his rival suitor, suddenly interposed.
For with pretence from Strephon her to guard,
He met her full, but full of warefulness,
With in-bow’d bosom well for her prepared,
When Strephon cursing his own backwardness
Came to her back, and so, with double ward,
Imprison’d her, who both them did possess
As heart-bound slaves.————
Her race did not her beauty’s beams augment,
For they were ever in the best degree,
But yet a setting forth it some way lent,
As rubies lustre when they rubbed be;
The dainty dew on face and body went,
As on sweet flowers, when morning’s drops we see:
Her breath then short, seem’d loth from home to pass,
Which more it moved, the more it sweeter was.
Happy, O happy! if they so might bide
To see their eyes, with how true humbleness,
They looked down to triumph over pride;
With how sweet blame she chid their sauciness—
Till she brake from their arms————
And farewelling the flock, did homeward wend,
And so, that even, the Barley-break did end.
This game is mentioned by Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” as one of our rural sports, and by several of the poets, with more or less of description, though by none so fully as Sidney, in the first eclogue of the “Arcadia,” from whence the preceding passages are taken.
The late Mr. Gifford, in a note on Massinger, chiefly from the “Arcadia,” describes Barley-break thus: “It was played by six people, (three of each sex,) who were coupled by lot. A piece of ground was then chosen, and divided into three compartments, of which the middle one was called hell. It was the object of the couple condemned to this division to catch the others, who advanced from the two extremities; in which case a change of situation took place, and hell was filled by the couple who were excluded by preoccupation from the other places: in this catching, however, there was some difficulty, as, by the regulations of the game, the middle couple were not to separate before they had succeeded, while the others might break hands whenever they found themselves hard pressed. When all had been taken in turn, the last couple were said to be in hell, and the game ended.”
Within memory, a game called Barley-break has been played among stacks of corn, in Yorkshire, with some variation from the Scottish game mentioned [presently]. In Yorkshire, also, there was another form of it, more resembling that in the “Arcadia,” which was played in open ground. The childish game of “Tag” seems derived from it. There was a “tig,” or “tag,” whose touch made a prisoner, in the Yorkshire game.
Barla-breikis.
In Scotland there is a game nearly the same in denomination as “Barley-break,” though differently played. It is termed “Barla-breikis,” or “Barley-bracks.” Dr. Jamieson says it is generally played by young people, in a corn-yard about the stacks; and hence called Barla-bracks, “One stack is fixed as the dule or goal, and one person is appointed to catch the rest of the company, who run out from the dule. He does not leave it till they are all out of his sight. Then he sets out to catch them. Any one who is taken, cannot run out again with his former associates, being accounted a prisoner, but is obliged to assist his captor in pursuing the rest. When all are taken, the game is finished; and he who is first taken, is bound to act as catcher in the next game. This innocent sport seems to be almost entirely forgotten in the south of Scotland. It is also falling into desuetude in the north.”[11]
[9] It may be doubted whether in the rude simplicity of ancient times, this word in the game of Barley-break was applied in the same manner that it would be in ours.
[10] Fremeb, (obsolete,) strange, foreign. Ash. Corrupted from fremd, which, in Saxon and Gothic, signified a stranger, or an enemy. Nares.
[11] Mr. Archdeacon Nares’s Glossary.