“Printed for John Wright and are to be sold at his Shop in Guilt Spurre Street at the sign of the Bible.”
Another version commences:—
There were two brothers liv’d under yon hill, As it might be you and I; And one of them did solemnly swear That Sir John Barley-corn should die.
Burns’ ballad commences:—
There went three Kings into the East, Three Kings both great and high, And they have sworn a solemn oath John Barleycorn should die, {301}
and ends—
Then let us toast John Barleycorn, Each man a glass in hand, And may his great posterity Ne’er fail in old Scotland.
Burns, no doubt, founded his ballad on the West Country Sir John Barleycorn, which, according to Robert Bell, in his annotated edition of ancient ballads, can set up a better claim to antiquity than any copy in the Roxburghe Collection. It commences thus:—
There came three men out of the West Their victory to try; And they have taken solemn oath, Poor Barleycorn should die.
This, by the way, reads like the origin of a teetotal movement.