Oats and Beans

DESCRIPTION: Playparty. "Oats, (peas/and), beans, and barley grow... Do you or I or anyone know... How oats and beans and barley grow." The farmer plants the seed and waits for harvest; young couples marry and must obey each other.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1883 (Burne)
KEYWORDS: playparty marriage farming
FOUND IN: Britain(England(All), Scotland) US(MW,NE,SE,So)
REFERENCES (18 citations):
Broadwood/Maitland-EnglishCountySongs, p. 87, "Oats and Beans" (1 text, 1 tune)
Wolford-ThePlayPartyInIndiana, pp. 94-96=Wolford/Richmond/Tillson-PlayPartyInIndiana, pp. 211-212, "Thus the Farmer Sows His Seed" (1 text, omitting the "Oats and Beans" opening but clearly this)
McIntosh-FolkSongsAndSingingGamesofIllinoisOzarks, pp. 95-96, "Oats, Peas, Beans, and Barley Grow" (1 text, 1 tune)
Linscott-FolkSongsOfOldNewEngland, pp. 46-47, "On the Green Carpet" (1 text, 1 tune, which seems to mix "Green Carpet" and "Oats and Beans")
Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore5, pp. 514-515, "Oats and Beans and Barley" (3 short texts, 3 tunes)
Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame 37, "Oats and Beans and Barley Grow" (3 texts, 1 tune)
Newell-GamesAndSongsOfAmericanChildren, #21, "Oats, Pease, Beans, and Barley Grow" (1 text plus excerpts, 1 tune)
Welsch-NebraskaPioneerLore, "Oats, Peas, Beans, and Barley Grows" (1 text, 1 tune)
Spurgeon-WaltzTheHall-AmericanPlayParty, pp. 146-147, "Oats, Peas, Beans, and Barley Grow" (1 text, 1 tune)
Arnold-FolkSongsofAlabama, p. 135, "Oats, Peas, Beans, and Barley Grow" (1 text, 1 tune)
OShaughnessy/Grainger-TwentyOneLincolnshireFolkSongs 16, "Oats and Beans and Barley Grows" (1 text, 1 tune)
Montgomerie/Montgomerie-ScottishNurseryRhymes 84, "(Oats and beans and barley grows)" (1 text)
Delamar-ChildrensCountingOutRhymes, p. 62, "The Farmer" (1 text, probably a fragment of this)
Abrahams-JumpRopeRhymes, #398, "Now you're married And you must be good" (1 short text, probably a fragment of this)
JournalOfAmericanFolklore, Carl Van Doren, "Some Play-Party Songs from Eastern Illinois," Vol. XXXII, No. 126 (Oct 1919), #20 p. 494 "Oats, Pease, Beans, and Barley Grows" (1 text)
MidwestFolklore, Anne Beard, "Games and Recreations in the Novels of Edward Eggleston," Volume 11, Number 2 (Summer 1961) p. 87, "Oats, Peas, Beans" (1 text)
DT, OATSBEAN (OATSPEAS*)
ADDITIONAL: Charlotte Sophia Burne, editor, Shropshire Folk-Lore: A Sheaf of Gleanings (London, 1883 ("Digitized by Google")), #I.1 p. 508, "Oats and Beans and Barley Grow!" (1 text)
Roud #1380
RECORDINGS:
Judy Cook, "Oats, Peas, Beans and Barley Grow" (Piotr-Archive #362, recorded 11/23/2022)
"Victor Band," "Looby Loo/Oats, Peas, Beans, Barley Grow" (Victor 20214-A)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "This Pretty Girl of Mine" (lyrics)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Oats, Peas, Beans
Oats and Beans and Barley Grow
NOTES [74 words]: Gomme has a table (Volume II, p. 11) showing the distribution of the various crops: Oats, beans, barley, wheat, groats, hops. The second Digital Tradition version comes close to the status of parody.
Newell-GamesAndSongsOfAmericanChildren claims that there are French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Swedish parallels to this piece, but it appears that most of these are just descriptions of farming; I am not sure they are actual parallels. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: DToatsbe

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