Catherine Clarke on the place of “Sumer Is Icumen In” within England’s history

Children of 1970s Britain – and their parents, and perhaps their off-spring, too – will remember Bagpuss, the pink-and-white-striped “saggy old cloth cat” who belonged to a little girl named Emily. In the much-loved television programme, Bagpuss – together with his companions Professor Yaffle the mechanical woodpecker, Madeleine the rag doll and Gabriel the toad – would help to mend lost and broken old toys found by Emily and brought back to her magical shop. While Bagpuss presided, the real workforce were the mice who lived in the “mouse organ”: an adorable miniature army of stop-motion labourers, stitched in grey felt, who would bustle eagerly about their business singing their “We will fix it!” song. That catchy ear-worm wasn’t a new tune. It was based on a medieval English part song, “Sumer Is Icumen In”, from a manuscript put together for one of the monks at Reading Abbey around the middle of the thirteenth century. The choice of music came from eminent folk musicians Sandra Kerr and John Faulkner – the voices of Madeleine and Gabriel, respectively.

The original medieval song is a celebration of the arrival of spring, with frolicking – and farting – animals and a noisy cuckoo. With its cast of barnyard animals and their sounds, it might seem that we’re in the territory of a children’s rhyme like “Old MacDonald”. But “Sumer Is Icumen In” is written in a prestige manuscript for the use of monks at Reading Abbey. And alongside the English lyrics – as well as the musical notation – are alternative words in Latin on the crucifixion of Christ.

What’s a poem about farting farmyard antics doing in this religious environment? And what on earth can it tell us about religious and secular cultures in medieval England? “Sumer Is Icumen In” casts light on a period often characterised lazily as the “Age of Faith”. It gives us a glimpse into the cultural magnificence of medieval monastic life – as well as its downfall at the Dissolution and Reformation. And it prompts us to reflect on some of our assumptions about the Middle Ages as a more innocent, childlike time: an imagined “Merry England” at the childhood of the nation.

[Above: Circulus perform “Sumer Is Icumen In” live]

Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweþ sedand bloweþ med
and springþ þe wde nu
Sing cuccu!
Awe bleteþ after lomb,
lhouþ after calue cu.
Bulluc sterteþ, bucke uerteþ,
murie sing cuccu!
Cuccu, cuccu
Wel singes þu cuccune swik þu nauer nu.
Sing cuccu nu; sing cuccu.
Sing cuccu; sing cuccu nu.

Summer has come in!
Loudly sing, cuckoo!
The seed grows and the meadow blossoms and the wood springs (into leaf ) now.
Sing, cuckoo!
Ewe bleats after lamb,
Cow lows after calf.
Bullock leaps, Stag farts,Sing merrily, cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo,
You sing well, cuckoo,
Don’t ever stop now!
Sing cuckoo now; sing cuckoo.
Sing cuckoo; sing cuckoo now

This is an extract from A History of England in 25 Poems (Allen Lane, £25) by Catherine Clarke. Buy a copy from bookshop.org here.

Or buy a copy from Blackwell’s here.

A Drink with the Idler

Catherine Clarke is our guest on this week’s “A Drink with the Idler”, where she will be talking about how England is revealed through its poetry. Thursday 30 October, 6-7pm. Click here to book – it’s FREE to subscribers.

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