> Shirley Collins > Songs > Mowing the Barley

Mowing the Barley / The Lawyer

[ Roud 922 ; Ballad Index ShH60 ; trad.]

[Trad. arr. Shirley Collins]

Mowing the Barley is from Cecil Sharp's book English Folk Song. Shirley Collins recorded it in a two day session in London in 1958 for her 1960 LP False True Lovers. Alan Lomax commented in the sleeve notes:

[This song], often called Lawyer Lee, may be a lyricised variant of The Baffled Knight, in which a clever girl outwits her would-be seducer and keeps her maidenhead. In this southern English variant, however, the virgin seems to have wearied in the chase. Miss Collins learned the song from her mother, and is not sure whether it derives from Sharp or not.

Lyrics

“Where are you going to, my pretty dear,
Where are you going, my honey?”
“Over the meadow, kind sir,” she said,
“To my father a-mowing the barley.”

“May I go with you, my pretty dear,
May I go with you, my honey?”
“Yes, if you want, kind sir,” she said,
“To my father a-mowing the barley.”

The lawyer told a story bold,
Together they were going
Till she quite forgot the barley field
And left her father a-mowing.

And now she is the lawyer's wife
And dearly the lawyer loves her.
She's living a happy, contented life,
Well into a station above her.