The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #1098   Message #1446515
Posted By: Jim Dixon
29-Mar-05 - 10:13 PM
Thread Name: Lyr/Tune Req: Barley Bridge
Subject: RE: Lyr/Tune Req: Barley Bridge
I don't know if this is related to "Barley Bridge" but by searching for "barley breaks" (as Murray suggested) I found some interesting stuff:

From Domestic Annals of Scotland:

In August 1628, the minister of Carstairs regretted to the presbytery of Lanark the breach of the Sabbath 'by the insolent behaviour of men and women in foot-balling, dancing, and barley-breaks.'

From Fun and games in the seventeenth century:

Other games like "Barley Breaks", and the self-explanatory "Bum to Busse", were undisguised incitements to sexual congress.