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.
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.
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!