[2] The farmer laughs at his joke, tells the ploughboys "'It's time to unyoke'" and promises them "a jug of my very best ale" when they've taken care of their horses.
The song ends with an exhortation to other ploughboys not to be afraid of their masters and the narrator tells them "You're all jolly fellows that follow the plough".
[1] An adaptation titled "Come all you bold fellows that follow the plough" was used as a recruiting song for Joseph Arch's National Agricultural Labourers' Union.
[17] Though "We're All Jolly Fellows" is sung commonly in folk clubs it doesn't seem to have been recorded frequently by revival-influenced artists.
There are CD versions by Oxford group Magpie Lane[18] and Barnsley singer Kate Rusby (as Jolly Ploughboys)[19] According to Ian Dyck the song was sung in the early nineteenth century at Harvest Homes, feasts held at the end of the harvest, a significant event in the rural calendar when farmers sat on one table with their servants, including the ploughboys.
It would be not only for the benefit of local dignitaries and guests of honour (often townspeople), but also for their fellow workers who were well aware that the song was not about a carefree country existence, but a medium for expressing all that was wrong in society.
They did not enjoy rising at dawn to work all day in a wet plough field, and they were not happy about their employer's paternalism.