The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland (Vol 2 of 2) / With Tunes, Singing-Rhymes, and Methods of Playing etc.

When one boy is tigged (or “tug”) the two issue forth hand in hand, and when more, all hand in hand. The other players have the privilege of breaking the chain, and if they succeed the parties forming it are liable to be ridden back to the den. At Lepton, where the game was publicly played, the boundaries were “Billy tour end, Penny Haas end, and I’ Horsin step.” So played in 1810, and is still.—Easther’s Almondbury Glossary.

In the Sheffield district it is called “Rag Stag,” and is usually played in the playground, or yard, attached to a school. Any number can play. A place is chalked out in a corner or angle formed by the walls or hedges surrounding the playground. This is called the den, and a boy stands within the den. Sometimes the den is formed by chalking an area out upon a footpath, as in the game of “Bedlams.” The boy in the den walks or runs out, crying, “Rag-stag, jinny I over, catching,” and having said this he attempts to catch one of the boys in the playground who have agreed to play the game. Having caught him he takes him back into the den. When they have got into the den they run out hand-in-hand, one of them crying, “Rag-stag, jinny I over, touching,” whilst the other immediately afterwards calls out, “Rag-stag, jinny I over, catching.” They must keep hold of each other’s hands, and whilst doing so the one who cried out “Touching” attempts to touch one of the boys in the playground, whilst the one who cried “Catching” attempts to catch one of such boys. If a boy is caught or touched, the two boys who came out of the den, together with their prisoner, run back as quickly as possible into the den, with their hands separated. If whilst they are running back into the den any boy in the playground can catch any one of the three who are running back, he jumps on his back and rides as far as the den, but he must take care not to ride too far, for when the boys who are already caught enter the den they can seize their riders, and pull them into the den. In this case the riders too are caught. The process is repeated until all are caught.—Addy’s Sheffield Glossary.

Another name for the game is “Stag-out.” One player is Stag, and has a place marked out for his bounds. He stands inside, and then rushes out with his hands clasped together, and endeavours to touch one of the other players, which being accomplished, he has the privilege of riding on the boy’s back to his bounds again.—Book of Sports. In a London version the hands were held above the head, and joined by interlacing the thumbs, the fingers being outspread, the boy had to touch another while in this position.

In Shropshire it is called “Stag-warning.” One boy is chosen Stag; he runs about the playground with his clasped hands held palms together in front of him, trying to tick (= touch) others. Each whom he touches joins hands with him, and they run together in an ever-lengthening chain, sweeping the playground from end to end, the boys at each end of the chain “ticking” others with their disengaged hands, till all are caught but one, who becomes the next “Stag.” The Stag gives notice of his start by exclaiming—

—Shrewsbury.

—Chirbury (Burne’s Shropshire Folk-lore, p. 523).

The game is mentioned by Mr. Patterson in his Antrim and Down Glossary. Northall’s English Folk Rhymes, p. 392, gives a Warwickshire and Staffordshire version, in which the first player “ticked” or “tagged” becomes Stag when the first game is concluded, all having been caught. The words used are—

Halliwell (Dictionary) also describes the game, and indicates its origin. The boy chosen for the game clasps his hands together, and, holding them out, threatens his companions as though pursuing them with horns, and a chase ensues in which the Stag endeavours to strike one of them, who then becomes Stag in his turn. Unfortunately, Halliwell does not, in this instance, give his authority, but if it is taken from the players themselves, it is a sufficient account of the origin of the game, apart from the evidence of the name. All this group of games is evidently to be traced to one original, though in different places the detail of the game has developed somewhat differently. It evidently comes down from the time when stags were hunted not so much for sport as for food.

See “Chickidy Hand,” “Hornie,” “Hunt the Stagie,” “Shepherds,” “Warney.”[Addendum]

Stagging

See “Hirtschin Hairy.”

Steal the Pigs

See “Mother, Mother, Pot boils over,” “Witch.”

Stealy Clothes

See “Scots and English.”

Steik and Hide

The game of Hide and Seek.—Aberdeen (Jamieson).

Sticky-stack

Sticky Toffey

Stiff Police

Stik-n Snael (Stick and Snell)

Stocks

A schoolboys’ game. Two boys pick a side, and there is one den only, and they toss to see which side shall keep it. The side which wins the toss then goes out, and when two boys have got a good distance off they cry “Stocks.” The boys who keep the den run after them to catch them. When one is caught his capturer counts ten while he holds him (in a more primitive but less refined state, spat over his head) and cries Stocks. This prisoner is taken into the den. If they are all caught the other side turns out. But if one of the outer side can manage to run through the den and cry “Stocks,” all the prisoners are relieved, and can go out again.—Easther’s Almondbury Glossary. See “Stacks.”

Stones

Mr. Kinahan, who describes this game, adds a very instructive note, which is worth quoting:—

“These games I have seen played over half a century ago, with a lob-stick, but of later years with a ball, long before a cricket club existed, in Trinity College, Dublin, and when the game was quite unknown in a great part of Ireland. At the same time, they may have been introduced by some of the earlier settlers, and afterwards degenerated into the games mentioned above; but I would be inclined to suspect that the Irish are the primitive games, they having since been improved into cricket. At the present day these games nearly everywhere are succeeded by cricket, but often of a very primitive form, the wickets being stones set on end, or a pillar of stones; while the ball is often wooden, and very rudely formed.”

Stool-ball

The earliest description of the game, however, is by Aubrey. He says “it is peculiar to North Wilts, North Gloucestershire, and a little part of Somerset near Bath. They smite a ball, stuffed very hard with quills and covered with soale leather, with a staffe, commonly made of withy, about three feet and a half long. Colerne down is the place so famous and so frequented for stobball playing. The turfe is very fine and the rock (freestone) is within an inch and a halfe of the surface which gives the ball so quick a rebound. A stobball ball is of about four inches diameter and as hard as a stone. I do not heare that this game is used anywhere in England but in this part of Wiltshire and Gloucestershire adjoining.” (Aubrey’s Natural History of Wiltshire, p. 117; Collections for North Wilts, p. 77). It is no doubt the same game as Stool-ball, which is alluded to by Herrick in 1648 (Hesperides), and in Poor Robin’s Almanack for 1677 (see Halliwell’s Dictionary). D’Urfey’s Don Quixote, written in 1694, alludes to it as follows:—

It is also alluded to in Poor Robin’s Almanack for 1740:

It is described by Strutt in Sports and Pastimes, p. 103, as a variety of game more commonly known as “goff” or “bandy ball,” the paganica of the Romans, who also stuffed their balls with feathers. According to Dr. Johnson, the balls are driven from stool to stool, hence the name.

In spite of Aubrey’s opinion as to the limited range of this game, it appears to have been pretty generally played. Thus, Roberts’ Cambrian Antiquities says, “Stool-ball, resembling cricket, except that no bats are used and that a stool was substituted for the wicket, was in my memory also a favourite game on holydays, but it is now seldom or ever played. It generally began on Easter Eve” (p. 123). It was also an old Sussex game. Mr. Parish’s account is that it was “similar in many respects to cricket, played by females. It has lately been revived in East Sussex by the establishment of stool-ball clubs in many villages. The elevens go long distances to play their matches; they practise regularly and frequently, display such perfection of fielding and wicket-keeping as would put most amateur cricketers to shame. The rules are printed and implicitly obeyed.”—Parish’s Dictionary of Sussex Dialect.

Miss Edith Mendham says of the Sussex game, it is supposed to derive its name from being played by milkmaids when they returned from milking. Their stools were (I think) used as wickets, and the rules were as follows:—

1. The wickets to be boards one foot square, mounted on a stake, which, when fixed in the ground, must be four feet nine inches from the ground.

2. The wickets to be sixteen yards apart, the bowling crease to be eight yards from the wicket.

3. The bowler to stand with one foot behind the crease, and in bowling must neither jerk nor throw the ball.

4. The ball to be of that kind known as “Best Tennis,” No. 3.

5. The bats to be of wood, and made the same size and shape as battledores.

6. The striker to be out if the ball when bowled hits the wicket, or if the ball be caught in the hands of any of the opposing side, or if in running, preparing to run, or pretending to run, the ball be thrown or touch the wicket before the striker reaches it, and the ball in all cases must strike the face of the wicket, and in running the striker must at each run strike the wicket with her bat.

7. There should be eleven players on each side.

8. Overs to consist of eight balls.

Miss F. Hagden, in her short History of Alfriston, Sussex, says, “In the Jubilee year the game of stool-ball was revived and played in the Tye field. The rules resemble those of cricket, but the wickets are square boards on posts; the bowler stands in the centre of the pitch, the bats used are round boards with a handle. The game in Alfriston seems now to have died out again, but in many villages there are regular clubs for the girls,” p. 43. It also appears to be a game among Lancashire children to this day. A stool is used as a wicket, at which it is attempted to throw the ball; a player stands near the stool, and using his or her hand as a bat, wards off the blow. If the ball hits the stool the thrower takes the place at wicket; or if the ball is caught the catcher becomes the guardian of the stool. Stool-ball, like all ball games, was usually played at Easter for tansy cakes. Mr. Newell (Games and Songs) says this game is recorded by the second governor of Massachusetts as being played under date of the second Christmas of the colony.

See “Bittle-battle,” “Cricket,” “Stool-ball.”

Strik a Licht

A version of hide and seek. One player is chosen to be “it.” The other players go away to a distance and “show a light,” to let “it” understand they are ready. They then hide, and the first one found has to be “it” in place of the previous seeker.—Aberdeen (Rev. W. Gregor).

See “Hide and Seek.”

Stroke

Stroke Bias

Brome, in his Travels over England, 1700, p. 264, says: “The Kentish men have a peculiar exercise, especially in the eastern parts, which is nowhere else used in any other country, I believe, but their own; it is called ‘Stroke Bias,’ and the manner of it is thus. In the summer time one or two parishes convening make choice of twenty, and sometimes more, of the best runners which they can cull out in their precincts, who send a challenge to an equal number of racers within the liberties of two other parishes, to meet them at a set day upon some neighbouring plain; which challenge, if accepted, they repair to the place appointed, whither also the county resort in great numbers to behold the match, when having stripped themselves at the goal to their shirts and drawers, they begin the course, every one bearing in his eye a particular man at which he aims; but after several traverses and courses on both sides, that side, whose legs are the nimblest to gain the first seven strokes from their antagonists, carry the day and win the prize. Nor is this game only appropriated to the men, but in some places the maids have their set matches too, and are as vigorous and active to obtain a victory.”

Sun and Moon

Sunday Night

(b) The children stand in a row with backs against a wall or fence, whilst one stands out and stepping backwards and forwards to the tune sings the first verse. Then she rushes to pick out one, taking her by the hands and standing face to face with her, sings the other verse. Then the two separate their hands, and standing side by side sing the first verse over again, taking another girl from the row, and so on again.

“Monday night,” or “Pimlico,” is the name of a singing game mentioned by the Rev. S. D. Headlam, in The Church Reformer, as played by children in the schools at Hoxton, which he says was accompanied by a kind of chaunt of a very fascinating kind.[Addendum]

Sun Shines

Sweer Tree

Compare “Honey pots.”

Swinging

Rhymes were said or sung by children and young people when swinging. They were of the same character, and in many instances the same as those given in “See-saw” and “Shuttlefeather,” and were used formerly for purposes of divination. The following extract, from the Pall Mall Gazette of Sept. 19th, 1895, seems to indicate an early notion connected with swinging. It is taken from one of the articles in that paper upon Jabez Balfour’s diary during his residence in the Argentine Republic:—“On the 2nd November he (Balfour) mentions a curious Bolivian custom on All Souls’ Day, when ‘they erect high swings, and old and young swing all day long, in the hope that while they swing they may approach the spirits of their departed friends as they fly from Purgatory to Paradise.’ Two days later he adds: ‘I have to-day heard another explanation of the Bolivian practice of swinging on All Souls’ Day. They swing as high as they can so as to reach the topmost branches of the trees, and whenever they are thereby able to pull off a branch they release a soul from Purgatory.’”—Notes and Queries, 8th series, vi. 345. With this may be compared one of the methods and words used while swinging which I remember playing, namely, that while swinging, either in a room or garden, the object was to endeavour to touch either a beam in the ceiling or the top branches of a tree, singing at the same time a rhyme of which I only recollect this fragment:

The last was said when the effort was made to touch the ceiling or tree with the feet.—(A. B. Gomme.)

Miss Chase has sent me the following rhymes:

Said while swing stops itself:—

—Deptford.

—Marylebone.

The Deptford version is practically the same as known in several parts of the country, and Mr. Gerish has printed a Norfolk version in Folk-lore (vi. 202), which agrees down to the line “sent him off to sleep,” and then finishes with—

When they came to the “heigh-ho” a more energetic push than usual was given to the occupant of the swing, who was then expected to vacate the swing and allow another child a turn. Thus the rhyme served as an allowance of time to each child.

An amusement of boys in Galloway is described as on the slack rope, riding and shoving one another on the curve of the rope: they recite this to the swings—

—Mactaggart’s Gallovidian Encyclopædia.

Brockett (North Country Words) describes as a swing: a long rope fastened at each end, and thrown over a beam, on which young persons seat themselves and are swung backwards and forwards in the manner of a pendulum.

See “Merritot.”

Tait

The Dorset game of “See-saw.”—Halliwell’s Dictionary.

Teesty-Tosty

See “Ball,” “Shuttlefeather,” “Trip Trout.”

Teter-cum-Tawter

The East Anglian game of “See-saw.”—Halliwell’s Dictionary.

Tee-to-tum.

See “Totum.”

Thimble Ring

A number of young men and women form themselves into an oval ring, and one stands in the centre. A thimble is given to one of those who form the ring, and it is passed round from one to another, so that nobody knows who has it. Then the one who stands in the centre goes to the man at the top of the oval ring and says, “My lady’s lost her gold ring. Have you got it?” He answers “Me, sir? no, sir.” The one in the middle says, “I think you lie, sir, but tell me who has got it.” Then he points out the one who has the thimble, of which he takes possession, and then says the above lines. Then the one who was found to have had the thimble takes the place of the one inside the ring, and the game is repeated.

Halliwell gives a version of this game under the name of Diamond Ring (Nursery Rhymes, p. 223), but the words used consist only of the following lines:—

In the two following games from Yorkshire and Lincolnshire there are no words used in rhymes or couplets.

One child stands in the centre of a ring, which is formed by each member clasping the wrist of his or her left hand neighbour with the left hand, thus leaving the right hand free. A thimble is provided, and is held by one of the players in the right hand. No circular movement is necessary, but as the tune is sung, the right hand of each member is placed alternately in that of their right and left hand neighbour, each performing the action in a swinging style, as if they had to pass the ring on, and in such a manner, that the one standing in the centre cannot detect it. The thimble may be detained or passed on just as the players think fit. The words are the following:—

Varied with

Or

as the case may be, or rather may not be, in order to throw the victim in the centre off the scent.—West Riding of Yorkshire (Miss Bush).

The players sit in a row or circle, with their hands held palm to palm in their laps. The leader of the game takes a thimble, and going to every member of the company in turn, pretends to slip it between their fingers, or to hide it in their pinafores, saying as she does so—“I bring you my lady’s thimble, you must hold it fast, and very fast indeed.” Whereon each child thus addressed should assume an air of triumph suitable to the possession of such a treasure. After the whole party have gone through the farce of receiving the thimble, the girl who carried it round calls a player from the circle to discover who holds it. For every wrong guess a fine must be paid. When the searcher discovers the thimble she begins a new round of the game by taking the place of leader; and so on, till the accumulation of forfeits is sufficient to afford amusement in “loosing the tines.” The game is called “Lady’s Thimble.”—Lincoln, Scawby and Stixwould 76 years ago (Miss M. Peacock).

The rhyme used in the Sheffield game is that used in “Queen Anne,” but it appears to have no relevance to this game.

Thing done

Thread the Needle

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