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The Oxen Ploughing

Johnny Collins sang The Oxplough Song in 1973 on his Traditional Sound Recordings album The Traveller's Rest. This track was also included in 2002 on the Fellside anthology Seasons, Ceremonies & Rituals: The Calendar in Traditional Song, and in 2006 on the Free Reed box Midwinter: A Celebration of the Folk Music & Tradition of Christmas & the Turning of the Year. Johnny Collins commented in his liner notes:

Probably one of the songs in which the plough boys sang their own praises in the course of their procession through the streets on ‘Plough Monday’ (the first Monday after Twelfth Night). This set was collected in Cornwall from Frank Rowe and appears in Fred Hamer's Garners Gay.

John Kirkpatrick sang The Oxen Ploughing in 2011 on his Fledg'ling CD God Speed the Plough. He commented in the sleeve notes:

While working with heavy horses on the farm is known to date back a few hundred years, working with oxen is know to date back a few thousand. They might not be as intelligent and as versatile as horses, and as they are the eunuchs of the cattle world they can lack a certain drive, but they are strong, placid, and easy to keep. The traditional ox-driving cries which you get the chance to sing in this chorus are there because they need constant chivying, and the lad who steps alongside the ox-man has a long sharpened stick at the ready to give them a bit of a poke if they look as though they are grinding to a standstill.

All the traditional versions of this song have been found exclusively in the South Western counties of England, which is a little surprising as it appears that the last area where oxen were still being used regularly, right up until the 1920s, was in Sussex. Bob Copper has written delightfully about his father, Jim Copper, going to work with the local ox-man in the 1890s, and I have altered the usual form of the chorus to include the details he gives us about the teams of oxen always being yoked together in the same pairs, with names that start with the same letter. I have also added a couple of verses, to cover aspects of the work not otherwise touched in in the song.

This YouTube video shows John Kirkpatrick singing The Oxen Ploughing at the Royal Oak Lewes on October 7, 2010:

Lyrics

Johnny Collins sings The Oxplough Song

Come all you sweet charmers and give me choice,
There's nothing to compare with a ploughboy's voice.
To hear the little ploughboy singing so sweet
Makes the hills and the valleys around us to meet.

Chorus (after each verse):: For it's hark! the little ploughboy gets up in the morn.
Move along, jump along.
Here comes the ploughboy with Spark and Beauty, Berry,
Goodluck, Speedwell, Cherry,
And it's move along.
We are the lads that can keep along the plough,
We are the lads that can keep along the plough.

In the heat of the day what a little we can do!
We lay by the plough for an hour or two,
On the banks of sweet violets where we take our rest
While the cool stormy winds blow around us so fast.

If the farmer has no corn, no corn can he sow,
Then the miller has no work for his mill also,
And the baker has no bread for the poor to provide.
If the plough should stand still we should all starve alive.

And now to conclude, my song must here have an end,
I hope the little ploughboy won't ever need a friend.
Here's health unto the ploughboy wherever he may be,
Here's health to the ploughboy and God save the Queen.

Links

See also the Mudcat Café thread Oxen ploughing songs.