Lyr/Tune Req: Barley Bridge

Subject: Looking for "Barley Bridge" words and music
From:
Date: 22 Mar 97 - 02:27 AM

Hello,

Does anyone know where I can find "Barley Bridge?"

I have this much of it:

Shift your feet in nimble flight, You'll be home by candlelight. Open the gates as wide as the sky, And let the king come riding by.

- Elizabeth

Subject: RE: Looking for "Barley Bridge" words & music
From: Murray
Date: 24 Mar 97 - 03:45 AM

This sounds like a version of the children's game "Barley Breaks", which is described rather vaguely in the books by Lady Gomme (Trad. Games of England, Scotland, & Ireland), and Newell (Games & Songs of American Children).You may get more in the book by the Peter & Iona Opie, "Children's Games" [or some such], which I can't look up just now.

Subject: RE:
From: MMario
Date: 05 Nov 99 - 10:07 AM

refresh

Subject: RE: Lyr/Tune Req: Barley Bridge
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 27 Mar 05 - 08:48 PM

The song is quoted in "Precious Bane," a 1924 novel by Mary Webb (1881-1927):

I could hear them singing Barley Bridge out there.

Shift your feet in nimble flight,
You'll be home by candlelight.
Open the gates as wide as the sky,
And let the king come riding by.

Perhaps this is where Elizabeth found it.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Tune Req: Barley Bridge
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 29 Mar 05 - 10:13 PM

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.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Tune Req: Barley Bridge
From: A Wandering Minstrel
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 07:28 AM

'How many miles to Barley Bridge?
Three score and ten.
Can I get there by candle-light?
Yes, and back again
If your feet be nimble and light
you may be there by candle-light
A curtsey to you, and a curtsey to you,
If you please, will you let the King's horses through?
Through and through shall they go for the King's sake,
But the one that is hindmost shall meet a mistake.
Then open the gates as wide as the sky,
And let the king come riding by.

I think it's Hugh Walpole, but I wouldn't swear to it and he may be quoting something older.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Tune Req: Barley Bridge
From: IanC
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 08:52 AM

Jim

Barley Break wasn't sexual in nature, it's basically a childhood capture game. In fact, it's still played by children in my village (though they don't call it that).

:-)

Subject: RE: Lyr/Tune Req: Barley Bridge
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 09:03 AM

Right you are, Wandering Minstrel. Here's a quote from the novel, copied from Project Gutenberg of Australia:

Title:      Katherine Christian (1944)
Author:    Hugh Walpole

These two faced one another and arched hands; then the children one
by one came up and chose on which side they would be. They
whispered either to the girl or to John and then took their place
beside the one or the other. When the two strings of boys and
girls were complete, they proceeded, first the one line and then
the other, under the arched hands, and all sang together:

    'How many miles to Barley Bridge?
          Three score and ten.
    Can I get there by candle-light?
          Yes, if your legs be long.
    A curtsey to you, and a curtsey to you,
    If you please, will you let the King's horses through?
    Through and through shall they go for the King's sake,
    But the one that is hindmost shall meet with a great mistake.'

As they ran through, the girl and John had to catch the last one by
lowering their arms.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Tune Req: Barley Bridge
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 09:19 AM

see also "How many miles to Babylon" and "How many miles to Avalon"