Barley-Break

Barley-break is an old English country game frequently mentioned by poets of the 17th and 18th centuries. It was played by three couples, each made up of one man and one woman, occupying three adjoining bases or plots of ground. The couple standing in the central base, known as 'hell' or 'prison', tried to catch the other two couples as they ran between the outer bases; a caught pair then took over the hell position for the next round. The game gave rise to the phrase 'the last couple in hell', which appears often in older English drama, and the game itself carried a suggestive undertone in period literature, including Thomas Middleton and William Rowley's play The Changeling and Thomas Morley's ballett 'Now Is the Month of Maying', where it is used with connotations similar to the phrase 'roll in the hay'.