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Kitchen Table Kibitzing 8/1/2023: August!?! [1]
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Date: 2023-08-01
Isaac Ilyich Levitan: Before the Storm (1890)
Good evening, Kibitzers! August? How did that happen?
I have lovely weather this week, warm but cooling off at night (tonight’s overnight low is supposed to be 55°!), like summer used to be many years ago. I hope everyone else’s extremes have backed down for now!
Happy Lughnasadh!
I was sure I had already done a Lughnasadh diary at some point, and indeed I did, in 2016. But that was a long time ago, and I feel like posting numerous versions of John Barleycorn, so I will shamelessly pluck useful paragraphs from my old text and, if you get bored, I’ll see you in the comments!
Lughnasadh (LOO nə sə) is a Gaelic early-harvest festival (Lammas, meaning “loaf mass”, is a name also used by Christians) that’s observed by modern pagans, and still observed in various ways in its Gaelic homelands where the god Lugh originated.
From the old diary:
In particular, this is the beginning of the grain harvest season; thus “loaf mass”, in which loaves of bread are placed on the altar to give thanks for this harvest. But as I know KTKers realize, bread is not the only consumable product made from grain. Beer has been brewed for millennia, so it makes sense that both are celebrated. One way in which this holiday has traditionally been observed is by burning in a bonfire a large wicker figure of a man. A sheaf of grain from each local farmer is tied to the figure as an offering of gratitude. The wicker figure is not only the Burning Man; he’s John Barleycorn, the personification of the crop. He’s “resurrected” each summer and then killed anew, yet he endures.
The English folk song about Barleycorn’s life and death (#164 in the Roud Folk Song Index) has many tunes, as folk songs will. Here are a few.
🌾 Steeleye Span in 1995 at the Forum in London, in a concert to benefit the charity War Child. Tim Hart, one of their founding members, joins them for the occasion and sings the lead vocal here. (They’re a little blurry, I’m afraid, but the sound is fine.) [4:57]
🌾 This impressive a cappella version, with a different melody, is sung by a folk singer in Nottingham, England identified by name only as Julie, but also known as “The Bread Witch”. Her YouTube channel is called Eat Bake Sing, so we know she has her priorities right! [3:07]
🌾 The English folk duo Willow’s Drum (that’s a Facebook page — best I could do) sing the melody we’re more familiar with, but bring their own dramatic touches and awesome costumes. [5:57]
🌾 British folksinger Sam Lee gives a very atmospheric presentation of that same melody at Stonehenge. (The people who built Stonehenge apparently did farm, but I have no idea whether they made beer.) [5:03]
🌾 As a person of a certain age, of course I love Traffic’s version best. Although there are no notes on the video to this effect, it’s pretty clearly from their 1994 reunion tour’s live video, The Last Great Traffic Jam. This performance really lights up when Jim Capaldi steps forward to add harmony. (Tomorrow would have been Capaldi’s 79th birthday.) [6:38]
🌾 The only other thing I’d like to leave you with is a link to the 2014 poetry of my friend ruleoflaw, all about John Barleycorn and perfect for this occasion.
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