Harvest Home (III), The

DESCRIPTION: "Let us see how your liquors be." Each lad and lass try the brown ale and strong beer "and welcome the harvest home" Everyone dances to a fiddler's tune. The brown beer drives care away.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1873 (Lake; see note)
KEYWORDS: harvest dancing drink fiddle music party
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Williams-FolkSongsOfTheUpperThames, p. 230, "Welcome the Harvest Home!" (1 text) (also Williams-Wiltshire-WSRO Wt 473)
Roud #1294
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Firth c.19(168), "The Harvest Home" ("Oh come let us see how your liquors be") , H. Such (London), 1863-1885; also Harding B 11(2334), "The Harvest Home"
NOTES [181 words]: "harvest home n 1 : the gathering and bringing home of the harvest; also : the time of harvest ... 2 : a feast made at the close of the harvest -- called also hockey, kirn, mell, mell supper 3 : the song sung by the reapers at the close of the harvest" (source: Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged, 1976).
An article describing beer-making quotes the last two lines of this song as "The nut brown beer that will drive away care, And welcome the harvest home "(source: Henry Lake, "A Drop of Good Beer" in M.E. Braddon, editor, Belgravia A London Magazine, Vol. IX (Feb 1873 ("Digitized by Google")), Nov 1872, p. 68).
There seems to be a dance game here: "Now Jack and Sue proposed a dance, It was agreed upon by chance, That they should ha' it on the grass, And the fiddler play them a tune.... Now just before the dance was done, 'Thou art out,' says Dick, -- 'Thou art a liar,' says John, 'The fiddler played it wrong,' says Tom, 'So we'll ha' it o'er again,' Then every lad took forth his lass, And gently led her on the grass ...." - BS
Last updated in version 2.6
File: WT230

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