Who was John Barleycorn? Why was this ancient and ubiquitous myth such a lasting folklore and folk music theme? Why is it particularly important as we approach Lughnasadh, a Gaelic festival and Pagan holy day that marks the first harvest season. Celebrated annually on August 1st, Lughnasadh is a time of gathering, feasting, and honoring the abundance of the earth, bringing in the sheaves of wheat and barley that will become the sustaining bread, as well as future sustaining beer. John Barleycorn must die, like many other Pagan agricultural gods, when his time is come to be sacrificed. But, like other Pagan gods, he is also endlessly reborn, along with the return of the sun at the Winter Solstice, and the return of the barley and the corn and the wheat. And like Opheus and Dionysis, these Gods that dwell in the liminal zones of life and death, he becomes as well the source of ecstasy, be it beer, or wine, or music.
John Barleycorn Must Die is a traditional English song - records of its origins go back as far as the 1300s, and it is probably much older than that. Over time, many variations have arisen, and the Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote his own famous version of the story of John Barleycorn. In the 70's, John Renbourne, Traffic, and Steel eye Span popularized the song, along with many other folk artists. John Barleycorn is a very prime myth indeed - the Great King who is sacrificed, dies and is reborn in the agricultural cycle. The motif is found as the Sumarian Dumuzi, the Shepherd husband of the Goddess Inanna who goes into the underworld for part of the year, and returns to her in the Spring. The same idea of the dying and reborn King is found with the Egyptian Osiris, who is reborn in the Sun God Horus. "The King is dead: Long live the King!"
John Barleycorn is the personification of the grain, and the life of the grain from planting to harvest, transformation into beer, and then sowing. After Barleycorn’s first death he is buried, and laid within the ground. In midsummer he grows a “long golden beard” and “becomes a man”.
The song goes on to describe threshing and harvesting. Barleycorn is bailed and taken to the barn. And then the grain is parceled out. Some is taken to the miller to make flour for bread. And some is saved and brewed in a vat to make ale. And some is planted, so that the whole cycle can begin again. It is likely that versions of John Barleycorn were sung in pre-Christian times, to accompany harvest rituals. Some of these rituals survive to this day in modified form, most famously the sacrifice of the wicker man. These rituals tell the story of the death and rebirth of the god of the grain.
Photo with thanks to Avalon Revisited
John Barleycorn is, in particular, also the God of Ecstasy - because he provides celebration and ecstasy as the barley becomes the source of beer and the beloved malt whiskey of the Highlands. The malting and fermentation is also a part of his "life cycle" and divinity. Perhaps one of the most famous "ecstatic" manifestations of the Wicker Man, his rituals of sacrifice, rebirth, and celebration is Burning Man, the festival that happens in Nevada every fall. Originally associated with the burning of the Wicker Man at the Lammas Harvest Festival by neo-Pagans in the Bay Area,
it's grown to become a fantastic festival and art event. I'd be willing to bet however that many
of the people who attend Burning Man don't know that it began with that in mind...........
Here's an excellent quote I take from a Druid's Blog called "The Dance of Life"
about the Wicker Man:
It's interesting that in Robert Burn's poem, there are "three kings", similar to the kings from the east in the Nativity story. Early Christians who came to the British Isles (and elsewhere) often absorbed native pagan mythologies and traditional rituals into Christian theology, and the evolution of the Story of Christ is full of such imagery in order to help the natives accept Christianity. Certainly John Barleycorn shares with the Christ Story the ancient, ubiquitous theme of the death and rebirth of the sacrificed agricultural King.
I am a great admirer of the wisdom traditions of Gnostic and esoteric Christianity, but I also believe it is necessary to separate the spiritual teachings of Christianity from the mingling (and literalization) of earlier mythologies throughout in the development of the Church. For example, I believe the metaphor used to describe Jesus as the "Lamb of God" directly relates to Biblical practices prevalent in his lifetime of sacrifice of lambs and goats to Yahwah (indeed, the sacrifice of animals was commonthoughout the Roman and Jewish world.) The later development of the doctrine that Christ "died for our sins" may have some of its origins in the important, and quite ancient, Semitic Scapegoat Rituals, wherein the "sins and tribulations" of the tribe were ritually placed on the back of a goat, which was then driven away from the village to literally "carry away the sins" into the desert.
Observing recently a Catholic "Communion" ritual ("This is my Body, This is my Blood") I was impressed by the many layers of mythologies and archaic cultures inherant in that ceremony, still important to so many people today. And one of those threads may very well originate in the prime agricultural myth of the dying and reborn God, a long tradition from which John Barleycorn arises re-born every spring, and is finally "killed" in the fall.
Ubiquitous indeed! This same idea is found in variations throughout the Americas, this time with
the story of the Corn Mother (among the Cherokee, Selu) who is killed, dismembered, and reborn in
the spring.
John Barleycorn
by Robert BurnsThere was three kings into the east,
Three kings both great and high,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn should die.
They took a plough and plough'd him down,
Put clods upon his head,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn was dead.
But the cheerful Spring came kindly on,
And show'rs began to fall;
John Barleycorn got up again,
And sore surpris'd them all.
The sultry suns of Summer came,
And he grew thick and strong,
His head weel arm'd wi' pointed spears,
That no one should him wrong.
The sober Autumn enter'd mild,
When he grew wan and pale;
His bending joints and drooping head
Show'd he began to fail.
His coulour sicken'd more and more,
He faded into age;
And then his enemies began
To show their deadly rage.
They've taen a weapon, long and sharp,
And cut him by the knee;
Then ty'd him fast upon a cart,
Like a rogue for forgerie.
They laid him down upon his back,
And cudgell'd him full sore;
They hung him up before the storm,
And turn'd him o'er and o'er.
They filled up a darksome pit
With water to the brim,
They heaved in John Barleycorn,
There let him sink or swim.
They laid him out upon the floor,
To work him farther woe,
And still, as signs of life appear'd,
They toss'd him to and fro.
They wasted, o'er a scorching flame,
The marrow of his bones;
But a Miller us'd him worst of all,
For he crush'd him between two stones.
And they hae taen his very heart's blood,
And drank it round and round;
And still the more and more they drank,
Their joy did more abound.
John Barleycorn was a hero bold,
Of noble enterprise,
For if you do but taste his blood,
'Twill make your courage rise.
'Twill make a man forget his woe;
'Twill heighten all his joy:
'Twill make the widow's heart to sing,
Tho' the tear were in her eye.
Then let us toast John Barleycorn,
Each man a glass in hand;
And may his great posterity
Ne'er fail in old Scotland!
** Here's a link to the song being sung in a 1972 Concert by Traffic
