[730]. For all this English material, see Brand-Ellis, “Harvest Home,” in the Antiquities.
[731]. Chappell, I. 120.
[732]. Ibid., II. 745, one version. See for variants, and similar songs, J. H. Dixon, Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England, e.g. pp. 175 ff., London, Percy Soc., 1846; Broadwood and Maitland, English Country Songs, pp. 150 ff., London, 1893.
[733]. In the fifth act of Dryden’s opera, King Arthur, is a harvest-song with this chorus:—
Come, boys, come! Come, boys, come!
And merrily roar out Harvest Home!
and the directions are that the actors shall sing this as they dance, a good communal trait. The words of this song grew popular, were varied, and became a ballad; it is in order for some one to show that harvest-home songs, like other popular verse, come from operas, plays, concerts, and the like.
[734]. Perhaps “we end,” as Brand suggests; but perhaps and probably not. At another place in Devonshire they cry “the knack,” and a rime is repeated:—
Well cut, well bound,
Well shocked, well saved from the ground.