Jamieson calls this “a game generally played by young people in a corn-yard. Hence called barla-bracks about the stacks, S. B.” (i. e., in the North of Scotland). “One stack is fixed on 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 sight. Then he sets off 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 was 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.”
(b) The following description of Barley-break, written by Sir Philip Sidney, is taken from the song of Lamon, in the first volume of the Arcadia, where he relates the passion of Claius and Strephon for the beautiful Urania:—
She went abroad, thereby,
At barley-brake her sweet, swift foot to try. . . .
Afield they go, where many lookers be.
Then couples three be straight allotted there,
They of both ends, the middle two, do fly;
The two that in mid-place Hell 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, may hell supply;
Like some that seek to salve their blotted name
Will others blot, till all do taste of shame.
There may you 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 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 friends do fly.
Sir John Suckling also has given a description of this pastime with allegorical personages, which is quoted by Brand. In Holiday’s play of the Marriages of the Arts, 1618, this sport is introduced, and also by Herrick (Hesperides, p. 44). Barley-break is several times alluded to in Massinger’s plays: see the Dramatic Works of Philip Massinger, 1779, i. 167. “We’ll run at barley-break first, and you shall be in hell” (Dekker’s The Honest Whore). “Hee’s at barli-break, and the last couple are now in hell” (Dekker’s The Virgin Martir). See Gifford’s Massinger, i. 104, edit. 1813. See also Browne’s Britannia’s Pastorals, published in 1614, Book I., Song 3, p. 76.
Randle Holme mentions this game as prevailing in his day in Lancashire. Harland and Wilkinson believe this game to have left its traces in Yorkshire and Lancashire. A couple link hands and sally forth from home, shouting something like
Aggery, ag, ag,
Ag’s gi’en warning,
and trying to tick or touch with the free hand any of the boys running about separately. These latter try to slip behind the couple and throw their weight on the joined hands to separate them without being first touched or ticked; and if they sunder the couple, each of the severed ones has to carry one home on his back. Whoever is touched takes the place of the toucher in the linked couple (Legends of Lancashire, p. 138). The modern name of this game is “Prison Bars” (Ibid., p. 141). There is also a description of the game in a little tract called Barley Breake; or, A Warning for Wantons, 1607. It is mentioned in Wilbraham’s Cheshire Glossary as “an old Cheshire game.” Barnes, in his Dorsetshire Glossary, says he has seen it played with one catcher on hands and knees in the small ring (Hell), and the others dancing round the ring crying “Burn the wold witch, you barley breech.” Holland (Cheshire Glossary) also mentions it as an old Cheshire game.
See “[Boggle about the Stacks],” “[Scots and English].”