Note: This talk follows the reading of “John Barleycorn Must Die” by Scottish poet Robert Burns, written in 1782. It is just one version of a folk song with English origins.
You’ve probably figured out by now that the character, John Barleycorn, represents a plant – barley in this case – but he could be any of the grains grown by humans for food and drink. Poor John endures all kinds of indignities, which correspond to the agricultural cycle of planting, growing, harvesting, and processing. As you’ll hear in the last part, John Barleycorn gets some revenge, because he also symbolizes the beer and whiskey which can be made from barley, and their effects. Burns emphasizes joy and courage, with a touch of Scottish pride, but other versions highlight the darker effects of alcohol consumption. Jack London, the author best known for his novel, “Call of the Wild,” titled his autobiography, in which he discusses his struggles with alcoholism, “John Barleycorn.”
But let’s get back to the folktale and its poor hero, John Barleycorn. I chose this story to talk about because, in modern times, the song is often part of celebrations of Lughnasadh at the beginning of August. Lughnasadh is the festival of the Celtic sun god, Lugh, and is said to have been started in honor of his foster mother, who died of exhaustion after clearing the first agricultural fields of Ireland. This time of year the grains are being harvested. If you have a vegetable garden, you may also be enjoying the August harvests of things like tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, and the ever popular zucchini. Christians morphed Lughnasadh into Lammas, which is “loaf mass,” for the bread made from the grains. And, of course, bread as the body of Christ is the communion symbolism. Grain dies so we can eat, and live. Jesus dies so we can live. I’m pretty sure that’s what Robert Burns was hinting at in his poem.
There are many ways I could go from here, exploring all the symbolism in the Burns poem and the folktale behind it, but let’s keep it light. If you take anything from this, let it be a deeper connection to the planting to harvest cycle, both in the literal sense and symbolic of our own creative cycles, and an appreciation of the collective effort of those who have various skills to feed their community and the lessons there for us. It is a folktale, after all.
In the Burns poem we first meet, not John Barleycorn, but three kings in the east. Hmmm…where have I heard that before? Anyway, John gets ploughed under and declared dead. But then spring comes, and here he is, alive again.
When agriculture became big business, the idea of leaving seeds in the fields to grow next year faded away. I won’t name names, but there are some large agribusinesses that modify the plants so the seeds produced will not sprout, which is a shame, because it cuts the growers off from the death and rebirth part. But back in the day, John Barleycorn got ploughed under in the fall. During the grain harvest, some was left on the stalk to mature and dry and seed the field for the following year.
Think about your own creative process. Whether you’re writing or painting or sewing clothes or whatever, when you finish a project, what seeds remain? Maybe the whole thing is destined to grow into the next, like a short story that you continue to flesh out until you’ve written a novel. Or maybe you learned something in the process of creating, acquiring a new skill that you can put to use in the next project.
I consider myself a serial creative. You might call me a dabbler. I have tried lots of things and don’t consider myself really good at any of them. But my projects, even the unfinished ones that get shoved into the closet because one of these days I’m going to get back to them, leave seeds for something else. And even if there was nothing learned, the materials may be harvested for something else. I’ve done that with a few things I’ve knitted, usually because by the time I get close to finishing I no longer fit into whatever it was supposed to be. I don’t know why yarn shrinks so much when it’s just sitting on the needles. Anyway, no sense wasting good yarn. Maybe that very, very tight sweater that never got sleeves will make an excellent macrame plant hanger, right?
And so John Barleycorn’s story begins not in his growing but in his dying. The Pagan “Wheel of the Year” begins not in spring but on Samhain, the end of October, when everything that will be harvested has been taken from the fields and what remains is turned under to rest for winter. Composting. Germination. Waiting. Do you begin your creative process there, with the dying of the last? Keep that in mind when you get inpatient with your favorite artists and musicians and writers who don’t seem to be DOING anything.
As I said, the last project doesn’t really die, because it holds the seeds of rebirth. And in the spring John Barleycorn is reborn and grows over the summer to stand tall. And then it’s harvest time and we’re in the now part of the tale.
Burns uses some violent imagery in describing the harvesting process, but let’s put that aside, a product of the time. Burns was witnessing the end of the Highland clans and the eviction of many from their traditional lands to make room for sheep and more commercialized crops while other areas industrialized. I suspect Burns had some thoughts about Britian’s rule over Scotland that leaked into the poem, but that line of inquiry is for another time.
Let’s instead think about John Barleycorn for what he is, the personification of grain. Harvesting barley for beer brewing goes like this: The stalks are cut and tied into sheaths, dried, then beaten with a wooden staff, maybe with a flail on the end, to separate the grain from the stalk and husk. Then they soaked the grain, which actually causes it to sprout and ferment. The grain is stirred often. Then the grain is kiln dried and ready to be milled – crushed between two stones.
Right now I’m appreciating how easy it is to pluck a tomato off the vine and slice it. Can you imagine if you had to thresh and ferment every zucchini?
Industrialization of both agriculture and the post-harvesting process put all of those acts behind walls, but once these things must have been a community affair. I doubt the same person who worked the field was milling the grain. More likely, there were many involved, each with particular skills and tools.
And here I’d like to bring your thoughts back to your own creative endeavors. Are you working out in the open, where the process can be witnessed and supported? Or are you hiding what you’re creating inside cider block walls so that only the final product is ever seen?
Folk tales have lessons. What does “John Barleycorn Must Die” have to teach us? It is, most obviously, a description of the process of growing barley and brewing beer. It may have been a way to pass on the knowledge. More broadly, it teaches about the agricultural cycle and helps us to reconnect to what, in this day and age, we don’t get to watch except in our own gardens. And I’ve been inferring a lesson on the creative process from that. But there’s one more thing I think we can glean from the poem: the importance of community in that creative process.
Thinking back on my tried and abandoned creative endeavors, there is one thing that stands out: I don’t get the same satisfaction from doing whatever the thing is by myself as I do when I’m working in a group, even if we aren’t all working on the same type of thing. I’m certainly not recommending that we return to the days when the women had to have quilting circles just to get out of the house, but there is something to be said for letting others in on the behind-the-scenes stuff. Those of you who participate in writers’ groups know what I mean. There is something beautiful about sharing the whole imperfect, frustrating process, including the part where you rip it up or rip it out and start again.
It’s only been during the past few years that I have had my writing reviewed and edited by someone else. For someone who came up in the “hand something perfect in to the teacher and get an A, any criticism is failure” style of education, having someone give back something I wrote with suggestions or – gasp – corrections broke me. I felt like John Barleycorn after the threshing. But, when I got over myself, my writing got better. I don’t even get mad about edits anymore. Well, not most of the time.
Learning to lean into the support of a community while creating is precious for our own stuff, but there is more to be harvested here. As a community, we exist within the systems that have been imposed on that community. Looking at the world today, with its myriad issues and injustices, I can see that those systems are failing. But we fight to hold onto them, forgetting the way Burns’ poem started. In order for the rebirth to happen, the old must be ploughed under. It must die so the seeds of something new can germinate.
Do you remember the first stanza? There were three kings. It wasn’t something one could do alone. They got together and agreed John Barleycorn must die.
If we break down the systems and bring something new into being, is my vision of the world exactly what will get implemented? Of course not. There will be lots of edits, a collaborative process. But I can imagine and be inspired by a vision of a world where we work together to plant, to grow, to harvest, and to process, to feed a community, body and spirit, a world where everyone gets a zucchini! Imagine with me, also, abundance, courage, and joy. Imagine the creative process and rebirth of the world, hinted at in the story of John Barleycorn.
May it be so.