Three Grains of Corn

DESCRIPTION: "Give me three grains of corn, mother, only three grains of corn, 'Twill keep this little life I have Till the coming of the morn." The dying singer asks what Ireland has done to deserve death by famine and neglect, and notes that others are starving too
AUTHOR: See NOTES
EARLIEST DATE: 1848 (broadside, LOCSheet sm1848 431920)
KEYWORDS: death Ireland starvation poverty
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1848 - First of several Irish potato blights. Although the blights did not mean that there was no food in Ireland, prices shot up to the point that many could not afford it. Many died in the famines, and others fled to America
FOUND IN: US(MA,MW,Ro) Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (10 citations):
Sandburg-TheAmericanSongbag, p. 41, "Give Me Three Grains of Corn, Mother" (1 text, 1 tune)
Shoemaker-MountainMinstrelsyOfPennsylvania, pp. 230-232, "Give Me Three Grains of Corn" (1 text)
Stout-FolkloreFromIowa 15, pp. 22-23, "Give Me Three Grains of Corn" (1 text)
Rickaby/Dykstra/Leary-PineryBoys-SongsSongcatchingInLumberjackEra 59, "Three Grains of Corn" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hudson-FolksongsOfMississippi 56, pp. 172-173, "Three Grains of Corn" (1 text)
Scarborough-ASongCatcherInSouthernMountains, pp. 360-363, "Give Me Three Grains of Corn, Mother" (2 texts; 1 tune on p. 454)
Hubbard-BalladsAndSongsFromUtah, #96, "Only Three Grains of Corn" (1 text)
Dime-Song-Book #6, p. 34, "Three Grains of Corn" (1 text)
DT, THREEGRN* GRANCORN
ADDITIONAL: Manus O'Conor, Irish Com-All-Ye's (New York, 1901 ("Digitized by Google")), p. 65, "Give Me Three Grains of Corn, Mother" (1 text)
Roud #4492
RECORDINGS:
Pattie Maher, "Give Me Three Grains of Corn" (on MUNFLA/Leach)
BROADSIDES:
LOCSheet, sm1848 431920, "Give Me Three Grains of Corn, Mother", Oliver Ditson (Boston), 1848 (tune)
NOTES [319 words]: Scarborough speculates, "Perhaps the American pioneer's affection for [this] song is the remembrance of the famine among the early settlers in New England, when starvation was held off as long as possible by the rationing of food, the giving of three grains of corn as each person's daily supply."
New England did face famine several times in its early existence. But this sounds strangely symbolic. Stout thinks it comes from the Great Hunger in Ireland, although his version has no local references. Other texts do mention Ireland.
The authorship of this is slightly uncertain, due probably more to transcription errors than anything else. Hazel Felleman's The Best Loved Poems of the American People attributes the words to Amelia Blandford Edwards. But broadside LOCSheet sm1848 431920 lists "words by Mrs A.M. Edmond, Music by O.R. Gross."
The latter attribution is supported by William H. A. Williams, 'Twas Only an Irishman's Dream, University of Illinois Press, 1996, p. 42, who adds that "A note on the cover explains that the title was taken from 'the last request of an Irish lad to his mother as he was dying of starvation.' She finds three grains left in her pocket and gives them to him. 'It was all she had, the whole family were perishing from starvation.'" (A quote which reminds me a little of the story of the "widow's mite" in Mark 12:41-44, who made an offering at the Temple and "out of her poverty put in everything she had, all she had to live on"; also Elijah and the widow of Zarephath in 1 Kings 17:8-16, who is about to prepare the last bit of food she has for her and her son, although Elijah changes that situation.)
Thus, although the song seems to be known exclusively in North America, it is about the Irish famines; indeed, the song asks, "What has poor Ireland done, Mother, What has poor Ireland done? That the world looks on to see us starve, Perishing one by one." - RBW, (BS)
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File: San041

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