> Tim Hart & Maddy Prior > Songs > Oats and Beans and Barley Grows
> Martyn Wyndham-Read > Songs > Oats and Beans
> Shirley & Dolly Collins > Songs > Peas, Beans, Oats and the Barley

Oats and Beans and Barley Grows / Peas, Beans, Oats and the Barley

[ Roud 1380 ; Ballad Index DToatsbe ; GlosTrad Roud 1380 ; Folkinfo 12 ; trad.]

Lucy E. Broadwood, J.A. Fuller Maitland: English County Songs Paul and Liz Davenport: Down Yorkshire Lanes Patrick O’Shaughnessy: Twenty-One Lincolnshire Folk Songs

Roy and Val Bailey, accompanied by Leon Rosselson on guitar, sang the children’s skipping song Oats and Beans and Barley in 1968 on their LP Oats & Beans & Kangaroos.

Tim Hart and Maddy Prior recorded Oats and Beans and Barley Grows in 1969 for their second duo album Folk Songs of Old England Vol. 2. The record’s sleeve notes comment, probably somewhat exaggerating:

Although now only a children’s skipping song (this version comes from Lincolnshire), here are to be found references to pagan fertility rites. The farmer who “stamps his feet, claps his hands, and turns him round to view his lands” is almost certainly a morris dancer driving the evil spirits from the soil, and the reference to marriage could be the ritual marriage which occurs in many mummers plays.

Oats and Beans (or Hops and Beans) is also sung on the Topic LP from the same year, Children’s Singing Games, by pupils of Redriff Primary School, Bermondey, London. This album was produced to accompany the Festival Book of Singing Games.

The Broadside sang Oats and Beans on their 1971 album of Lincolnshire folk songs, The Gipsy’s Wedding Day. They noted:

Oats and Beans belongs to a children’s singing game and is printed in English County Songs edited by Lucy Broadwood and Fuller Maitland.

John [Sawdon] and Christine [Dossor] sang Oats and Beans / Turkey Rhubarb in 1972 on their Westwood album Who Liveth So Merry?. This track was included in 2022 on the Folk Heritage anthology Before the Day Is Done.

John Roberts and Tony Barrand sang Oats and Beans and Barley Grows in 1975 on their Front Hall album Mellow With Ale From the Horn. They noted:

Our source for Oats and Beans and Barley Grows was Tony’s mother, Amy Barrand, who remembered playing the game as a child. We filled out her text from other Lincolnshire variants.

Martyn Wyndham-Read and Geoff & Pennie Harris sang Oats and Beans in 1975 on their album of seasonal songs, Maypoles to Mistletoe.

Jon Boden sang Oats and Beans and Barley with his brother Tom as the 16 September 2010 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day.

Megson sang Oats and Beans and Barley Grow on their 2012 album of children’s folk songs, When I Was a Lad….

Peas, Beans, Oats and the Barley

Pam Gilder, Eddie Upton and Vic Gammon sang the related harvest home toast Peas, Beans, Oats and the Barley on the 1976 Free Reed theme album The Tale of Ale.

Shirley and Dolly Collins and Barry Dransfield sang Peas, Beans, Oats and the Barley as part of their harvest home medley on their 1978 album For As Many As Will.

John Kirkpatrick sang Peas Beans, and Oats in 2011 on his Fledg’ling album God Speed the Plough. He noted:

Getting the harvest in safely was one of the biggest tasks of the farming year. All available hands took part men, women, and children and the enormous amount of hard work involved generated an equal feeling of deep satisfaction at a job well done, and a tremendously binding sense of shared achievement. The opportunity to toast each other, the work, the farmer, and whatever else came to mind, was taken to the full especially if it came at the farmer’s expense!

Percy Merrick noted a handful of Harvest Toasts, including the basis of this song, from Henry Hills, of Lodsworth in Sussex, and published them in the English Folk Song Society’s Journal in 1901. The original has just a couple of two-line verses, which you can hear in a career-making performance by Eddie Upton on Vic Gammon’s 1977 double L.P. on the Free Reed label, The Tale of Ale. I have added lines from various Harvest Toasts taken from Charlotte Burne’s Shropshire Folk-Lore, published in the 1880s, to flesh out the song.

Lyrics

Tim Hart & Maddy Prior sing Oats and Beans and Barley Grows

Oats and beans and barley grows
As you and I and everyone knows
Oats and beans and barley grows
As you and I and everyone knows
A-waiting for the partner

First the farmer sows his seed
Then he stands and takes his ease
Stamps his feets and claps his hands
And turns around to view the land
A-waiting for the partner

Now you’re married you must obey
Must be true in all you say
Must be kind and must be good
And help your wife to chop the wood
A-waiting for the partner

(repeat first verse)

John Roberts and Tony Barrand sing Oats and Beans and Barley Grows

Oats and beans and barley grows
As you and I and everyone knows
You and I and everyone knows
Where oats and beans and barley grows
Oh, waiting for a partner
Open the ring and take one in
And kiss them when you get them in.

First the farmer sows the seed
And then the farmer takes his ease
Stamps his foot and claps his hand
And turns around to view the land:

Do you want a partner?
Do you want a partner?
For if you do, you must be true
And choose him very shortly:

Now you’re married, you must obey
You must be true to all you say
You must be kind and very good
And help your wife to chop the wood:

Shirley and Dolly Collins sing Peas, Beans, Oats and the Barley

𝄆 There stands a man that ploughs up the land
Where the peas, beans, oats and the barley stand 𝄇

Chorus (after each verse):
Peas, beans, peas, beans,
Peas, beans, oats and the barley

𝄆 Do you or I or any one know
Where the peas, beans, oats and the barley grow? 𝄇

𝄆 Stand to your partners and then you will know
Where the peas, beans, oats and the barley grow 𝄇