THE BARLEY-MOW SONG.
(SUFFOLK VERSION.)
[The peasantry of Suffolk sing the following version of the Barley-Mow Song.]
Here’s a health to the barley mow!
Here’s a health to the man
Who very well can
Both harrow and plow and sow!
When it is well sown
See it is well mown,
Both raked and gavelled clean,
And a barn to lay it in.
He’s a health to the man
Who very well can
Both thrash and fan it clean!
THE CRAVEN CHURN-SUPPER SONG.
[In some of the more remote dales of Craven it is customary at the close of the hay-harvest for the farmers to give an entertainment to their men; this is called the churn supper; a name which Eugene Aram traces to ‘the immemorial usage of producing at such suppers a great quantity of cream in a churn, and circulating it in cups to each of the rustic company, to be eaten with bread.’ At these churn-suppers the masters and their families attend the entertainment, and share in the general mirth. The men mask themselves, and dress in a grotesque manner, and are allowed the privilege of playing harmless practical jokes on their employers, &c. The churn-supper song varies in different dales, but the following used to be the most popular version. In the third verse there seems to be an allusion to the clergyman’s taking tythe in kind, on which occasions he is generally accompanied by two or three men, and the parish clerk. The song has never before been printed. There is a marked resemblance between it and a song of the date of 1650, called A Cup of Old Stingo. See Popular Music of the Olden Time, I., 308.]
God rest you, merry gentlemen!
Be not movèd at my strain,
For nothing study shall my brain,
But for to make you laugh:
For I came here to this feast,
For to laugh, carouse, and jest,
And welcome shall be every guest,
To take his cup and quaff.
Cho. Be frolicsome, every one,
Melancholy none;
Drink about!
See it out,
And then we’ll all go home,
And then we’ll all go home!
This ale it is a gallant thing,
It cheers the spirits of a king;
It makes a dumb man strive to sing,
Aye, and a beggar play!
A cripple that is lame and halt,
And scarce a mile a day can walk,
When he feels the juice of malt,
Will throw his crutch away.
Cho. Be frolicsome, &c.
’Twill make the parson forget his men,—
’Twill make his clerk forget his pen;
’Twill turn a tailor’s giddy brain,
And make him break his wand,
The blacksmith loves it as his life,—
It makes the tinkler bang his wife,—
Aye, and the butcher seek his knife
When he has it in his hand!
Cho. Be frolicsome, &c.