Sumer Is Icumen In — a medieval ditty that has

sparked scholarly debate about one word in particular

Jazz. Rock’n’roll. Heavy Metal. Rap. Every new music has been met by critics who feared it would
corrupt our souls. For a reminder that it was ever thus, let’s zip back to the 13th century, when
John of Salisbury (English-born Bishop of Chartres) first encountered polyphony. Although
experiments in multiple melodies date back to the 10th century, almost all European music of the
period had followed one simple melodic line (possibly augmented by a harmony sung up a fourth
or a fifth). But composers of the Notre Dame School (among others) popularised the mingling of
independent melodies in a way that the prelate found a little overwhelming.

“When this goes to excess it is more fitted to excite lust than devotion,” he fretted, before conceding
that, used in moderation, the new sound “transports the soul to the society of angels”.
Reflecting the earthy/sacred response to the new sound, the oldest recorded six-part round in
English comes complete with religious lyrics in Latin and secular lyrics in a Wessex dialect of
Middle English. “Sumer is Icumen In” is written down in an illuminated manuscript dating from
the early 1260s and found at Reading Abbey. The Latin words (written in red ink and now seldom
sung) tell the tale of God sacrificing his only son. The English version (written in black and still
popular with schoolchildren) describes the native flora and fauna responding to warmer weather.
“The seed is growing/ And the meadow is blooming/ And the wood is coming into leaf now/ Sing,
cuckoo!” it begins to a jaunty tune that goes on to echo the call of the bird it celebrates.
There’s some rather intense scholarly debate over what happens in the second verse, which moves
from the wild world to focus on livestock. “The ewe is bleating after her lamb/ The cow is lowing
after her calf/ The bullock is prancing…” Then either a deer or a billy goat is cavorting or farting,
depending on how we translate the words “bucke uerteþ”. If “uerteþ” is farting (as the majority of
medievalists believe), then this is the earliest known use of the verb “to fart” in English.
Whether about frolics or flatulence, the song has echoed, cuckoo-esque, down through the
centuries. There has been a little fuss about whether we can classify it as a “folk” song. One school
of purists argues that because its melody was written down and might have an official composer
(perhaps the cleric W. de Wycombe), it does not qualify as part of a collective, oral tradition.
But it has the familiarity of folk, making it ripe for parody. In 1916 the American poet Ezra Pound
reworked it as “Winter Is Icumen In”: “Sing: Goddamm./ Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,/ An ague
hath my ham./ Freezeth river, turneth liver, / Damm you; Sing: Goddamm.”
Early music specialists The English Singers made the first recording of it in 1927 with “six noses
crowded into a single horn”. Little John (Alan Hale Sr) hums it in the 1938 Errol Flynn
swashbuckler The Adventures of Robin Hood. In 1949 Benjamin Britten worked it into the climax
of his choral Spring Symphony: children sing the song in 2/4 time while the rest of the ensemble
continues in 3/4 waltz time. Another composer with a soft spot for Merrie England, Ralph Vaughan
Williams, wove it into his Folk Songs of the Four Seasons (1950): the first music commissioned by
the Women’s Institute for their choir of 3,000 to perform at the Royal Albert Hall. Vaughan
Williams turned the work into an orchestral suite in 1952.
It was performed at the opening ceremony of the ill-fated Munich Olympics in 1972, timpani
thumping and xylophone plinking as a running track full of solemn children held aloft paper-
decked arches. The following year it soundtracked the terrifying climax of The Wicker Man: the
pagan inhabitants of Summerisle sing it, cloaked in portentous brass, as they prepare to burn the
hero alive in a ritual sacrifice. Cardiacs side project Mr and Mrs Smith and Mr Drake gave it
a quirkily textured treatment in 1984, fluttering with woodwind and saxophone. Folk hero Richard
Thompson gave hearty voice to it in the original Middle English on his 2009 album 1,000 Years of
Popular Music. Post-punk quartet The Futureheads delivered it with vim on their 2012 a cappella
album, Rant.
Alas, the number of cuckoos in the UK has fallen by 65 per cent since the early 1980s. According to
the British Trust for Ornithology, their decline is most likely caused by a reduction in the numbers
of the caterpillars on which they prefer to feed and a deterioration in the route from which they fly
from Africa to herald British summers. Soon the only cuckoos we hear may be the ones imitated by
humans in songs such as this.

Read the article above, then answer the following questions. Look up in a dictionary the words you
don’t know and, if you feel like, surf the net for the remakes of the song mentioned in the article.

1. Who was John of Salisbury?

He was the Bishop of Chartres

2. What did he think of polyphony?

he thought it a “little overwhelming”.

3. What had the Notre Dame School been doing since the 10th century?

the composers of Notre-Dame popularised the mingling of independent melodies

4. Why was the song copied in two languages? What variety of middle English was used?

There are 2 manuscripts, one in Latin and one in English (wessex dialect). The first tell the tale of
God sacrificing his only son, the second talk about native flora and fauna
 5. When does the first manuscript of the song date back to?

the first manuscript dates back to the early 1260s.

6. Where was it found?

It was found in Reading Abbey

7. What does the second verse focus on?

the second verse focuses on the livestock

8. What word is the ‘particular word’ on which debate seems to focus?

The word that sparked the debate is "bucke uerteþ", which could have two meanings: for some it
would simply mean "cavorting", while for many others it would mean "emitting intestinal gas"
(farting)

9. Why do some scholars believe that this canon cannot be regarded as a true ‘folk song’?
Because a folk song has oral tradition, while this was written

10.How is this opinion countered?

However, it is considered a “cornerstone” of the English popular tradition

10. When was the song first recorded?

The English Singers first recorded it in 1927

11. Name two composers who used the song in modern times.

Richard Thompson and The Futureheads

12. What has happened to the British cuckoos?

Since 1980 the population of the cuckoos has decreased by 65%, caused by a reduction in the
numbers of the caterpillars on which they prefer to feed and a deterioration in the route from
which they fly from Africa to herald British summers.