Cecil Sharp's Note 99 (1916)

No. 99. The Barley-Mow

I have a large number of variants of this song, which used to be in great request at Harvest Homes.

Chappell, without giving its origin, prints a traditional version in his Popular Music (p. 745), and connects it with one of the Freemen’s Songs in Deuteromelia. In Bell’s Songs of the Peasantry of England, two versions of the words are given, one from the West Country, and a Suffolk variant. In a note to the former, it is stated that the song was usually sung at country meetings immediately after the ceremony of “erying the neck,” an ancient pagan rite, traces of which still survive in Somerset.

A good singer, proud of his memory, will often lengthen the song to abnormal proportions by halving the drink-measures, half-pint, half-quart, half-gallon, and so on.