(d) This restoration of the words, though it probably is far from complete, and does not make so good a game rhyme as the reduced versions, nevertheless shows clearly enough that the incidents belong to a ceremonial of primitive well-worship. The pulling of the hands backwards and forwards may be taken to indicate the raising of water from a well. If this is conceded, the incidents might be grouped as follows:—

• (1.) Drawing of water from a well.
• (2.) For a devotee at the well.
• (3.) Collecting flowers for dressing the well.
• (4.) Making of a cake for presentation.
• (5.) Gifts to the well [the silver pin, gold ring, and probably the garter].
• (6.) Command of silence.
• (7.) The presence of the devotee at the sacred bush.

All these are incidents of primitive well-worship (see Gomme’s Ethnology and Folk-lore, pp. 82-103). Garland dressing is very general; cakes were eaten at Rorrington well, Shropshire (Burne’s Shropshire Folk-lore, p. 433); pins and portions of the dress are very general offerings; silence is strictly enforced in many instances, and a sacred tree or bush is very frequently found near the well.

The tune of the Hampshire game (Miss Mendham’s version) is practically the same as that of the “Mulberry Bush.”

Newell (Games of American Children, p. 90) gives a version of this game.[Addendum]

Drawing Dun out of the Mire

Nares (Glossary) says this game was a rural pastime, in which Dun meant a dun horse, supposed to be stuck in the mire, and sometimes represented by one of the persons who played.

Gifford (Ben Jonson, vol. vii. p. 283), who remembered having played at the game (doubtless in his native county, Devonshire), thus describes it:—“A log of wood is brought into the midst of the room: this is Dun (the cart horse), and a cry is raised that he is stuck in the mire. Two of the company advance, either with or without ropes, to draw him out. After repeated attempts they find themselves unable to do it, and call for more assistance. The game continues till all the company take part in it, when Dun is extricated of course; and the merriment arises from the awkward and affected efforts of the rustics to lift the log, and sundry arch contrivances to let the ends of it fall on one another’s toes.”

Drop Handkerchief

This is a game similar to Cat and Mouse, but takes its name from the use of the handkerchief to start the pursuit. Various rhyming formulæ are used in some places. In Monton, Lancashire (Miss Dendy), no rhyme is used.

The children stand in a ring. One runs round with a handkerchief and drops it; the child behind whom it is dropped chases the dropper, the one who gets home first takes the vacant place, the other drops the handkerchief again.

In Shropshire the two players pursue one another in and out of the ring, running under the uplifted hands of the players who compose it: the pursuer carefully keeping on the track of the pursued (Burne’s Shropshire Folk-lore, p. 512).

The Dorsetshire variant is accompanied by a rhyme:

This is repeated until the handkerchief is stealthily dropped immediately behind one of the players, who should be on the alert to follow as quickly as possible the one who has dropped it, who at once increases her speed and endeavours to take the place left vacant by her pursuer. Should she be caught before she can succeed in doing this she is compelled to take the handkerchief a second time. But if, as it more usually happens, she is successful in accomplishing this, the pursuer in turn takes the handkerchief, and the game proceeds as before.—Symondsbury (Folk-lore Journal, vi. 212).

—Leicestershire (Miss Ellis).

The Forest of Dean version is the same as the Dorsetshire, except that the child who is unsuccessful in gaining the vacant place has to stand in the middle of the ring until the same thing happens to another child.—Miss Matthews.

In Nottinghamshire the children form in a ring; one walks round outside the ring singing and carrying a handkerchief:

The handkerchief is then dropped at some one’s back, the one at whose back the handkerchief was dropped chasing the other.

Or they say:

—Miss Winfield.

At Winterton and Lincoln the children form a circle, standing arms-length apart. A child holding a handkerchief occupies the centre of the ring and sings:

(Here the singer points to each child in turn)

Then she drops the handkerchief before her chosen playmate, who chases her in and out of the ring under the arms of the other children until she is captured. The captor afterwards takes the place in the centre, and the original singer becomes a member of the circle.—Miss M. Peacock.

The Deptford version of the verse is as follows:—

—Deptford, Kent (Miss Chase).

A Staffordshire and Sharleston version gives some altogether different formulæ:—

—Staffordshire (Rev. G. T. Royds, Rector of Haughton).

At Sharleston the centre child says, “What colour is t’ sky?” The other answers, “Blue.” Centre child says, “Follow me true.” Here the centre child runs in and out between the others until the one who was touched catches her, when they change places, the first joining the children in the ring.—Sharleston (Miss Fowler).

At Beddgelert, Wales (Mrs. Williams), this game is called Tartan Boeth. It is played in precisely the same manner as the English game, but the words used are:

At the words, “Very hot!” the handkerchief is dropped.

(b) In this game no kissing takes place, and that this is no mere accidental omission may be shown by Mr. Udal’s description of the Dorsetshire game. He was assured by several persons who are interested in Dorset Children’s Games that the indiscriminate kissing (that is, whether the girl pursued runs little or far, or, when overtaken, whether she objects or not) with which this game is ordinarily associated, as played now both in Dorset and in other counties, was not indigenous to this county, but was merely a pernicious after-growth or outcome of later days, which had its origin in the various excursion and holiday fêtes, which the facilities of railway travelling had instituted, by bringing large crowds from the neighbouring towns into the country. He was told that thirty years ago such a thing was unknown in the country districts of Dorset, when the game then usually indulged in was known merely as “Drop the Handkerchief” (Folk-lore Journal, vii. 212).

In other cases the rhymes are used for a purely kissing game, for which see “Kiss in the Ring.”[Addendum] [Addendum] [Addendum]

Dropping the Letter

Duck under the Water

Each child chooses a partner, and form in couples standing one before the other, till a long line is formed. Each couple holds a handkerchief as high as they can to form an arch. The couple standing at the end of the line run through the arch just beyond the last couple standing at the top, when they stand still and hold their handkerchief as high as possible, which is the beginning of the second arch; this is repeated by every last couple in succession, so that as many arches as are wanted can be formed.—East Kirkby, Lincolnshire (Miss K. Maughan).

Miss Baker (Northamptonshire Glossary) says the game is played in that county. Formerly in the northern part of the county even married women on May Day played at it under the May garland, which was extended from chimney to chimney across the village street.

Duck at the Table

Probably the same as Duckstone.

Duck Dance

[Play]

—Northamptonshire, Revue Celtique, iv. 200; Halliwell’s Nursery Rhymes, No. ccclxxvii.

(b) A number of little girls join hands and form a ring. They all jump round and sing the verses. The game ends by the girls following one of their number in a string, all quacking like ducks.—Northamptonshire.

(c) Halliwell does not include it among his games, but simply as a nursery paradox. The tune given is that to which I as a child was taught to sing the verses as a song. We did not know it as a game. The “Quack, quack!” was repeated as another line to the notes of the last bar given, the notes gradually dying away (A. B. Gomme).

Duck Friar

The game of “Leap-frog.”—Apollo Shroving, 1627, p. 83.

Ducks and Drakes

—Peacock’s Manley and Corringham Glossary.

Moor (Suffolk Words and Phrases) gives the names for the number of times the stone emerges, as (1) “a duck;” (2) “a duck an’ a drake;” if thrice, “a duck an’ a drake an’ a fi’epenny cake;” four times is “a duck an’ a drake an’ a fi’epenny cake, an’ a penny to pah the baker.” If more than four, “a duck,” “a duck an’ a drake,” &c., are added. These distinctions are iterated quickly to correspond in time as nearly as may be with the dips of the stone. A flattish stone is evidently the best for this sport.

(b) This game is also given by Mr. Addy in his Sheffield Glossary, and by Holland (Cheshire Glossary), Brogden (Provincial Words, Lincolnshire), Lowsley (Berkshire Glossary), Nares’ Glossary, and Baker’s Northants Glossary. Miss Courtenay gives “Scutter” and “Tic Tac Mollard” as Cornish names for the game (West Cornwall Glossary). See also Halliwell’s Nursery Rhymes, p. 139, and Strutt’s Sports and Pastimes, p. 326.

Butler, in his Hudibras (p. ii. canto iii. l. 302), makes it one of the important qualifications of his conjurer to tell—

The following description of this sport is given by Minucius Felix, ed. 1712, p. 28, which evinces its high antiquity: “Pueros videmus certatim gestientes, testarum in mare jaculationibus ludere. Is lusus est, testam teretem, jactatione fluctuum lævigatam, legere de litore: eam testam plano situ digitis comprehensam, inclinem ipsum atque humilem, quantum potest, super undas irrorare: ut illud jaculum vel dorsum maris raderet, vel enataret, dum leni impetu labitur; vel summis fluctibus tonsis emicaret, emergeret, dum assiduo saltu sublevatur. Is se in pueris victorem ferebat, cujus testa et procurreret longius, et frequentius exsiliret.”

“From this pastime,” says Moor, “has probably arisen the application of the term to a spendthrift—of whose approaching ruin we should thus speak: ‘Ah, he’ave made fine ducks and drakes of a’s money, that a’ have.’”—Suffolk Words.

Duckstone

Duffan Ring

Name for “Cat and Mouse” in Cornwall.—Folk-lore Journal, v. 57.

Dumb Crambo

Dumb Motions

See “Trades.”

Dump

A boys’ amusement in Yorkshire, in vogue about half a century ago, but now believed to be nearly obsolete. It is played in this manner. The lads crowd round and place their fists endways, the one on the other, till they form a high pile of hands. Then a boy, who has one hand free, knocks the piled fists off one by one, saying to every boy as he strikes his fist away, “What’s there, Dump?” He continues this process till he comes to the last fist, when he exclaims:—

Every one then endeavours to refrain from speaking in spite of mutual nudges and grimaces, and he who first allows a word to escape is punished by the others in the various methods adopted by schoolboys. In some places the game is played differently. The children pile their fists in the manner described above; then one, or sometimes all of them, sing:

The merriment consists in the bustle and confusion occasioned by the rapid withdrawal of the hands (Halliwell’s Nursery Rhymes, p. 225). Compare Burne’s Shropshire Folk-lore, p. 529.

Northall (Folk Rhymes, p. 418) gives the following rhymes as said in Warwickshire while the fists are being piled on one another:—

See “Dish-a-loof,” “Sacks.”[Addendum]

Dumps

Dust-point

Nares (Glossary) suggests that this game and blow-point resembled the game of Push-pin. See also Halliwell’s Dictionary.

Eller Tree

(b) The tree is the alder. It abounds in the North of England more than in any other part of the kingdom, and seems always to have been there held in great respect and veneration. Many superstitions also attach to the tree. It is possible from these circumstances that the game descends from an old custom of encircling the tree as an act of worship, and the allusion to the “rags” bears at least a curious relationship to tree worship. If this conclusion is correct, the particular form of the game preserved by Mr. Addy may be the parent form of all games in which the act of winding is indicated. There is more reason for this when we consider how easy the notion of clock-winding would creep in after the old veneration for the sacred alder tree had ceased to exist.

See “Bulliheisle,” “Wind up the Bush Faggot,” “Wind up the Watch.”

Ezzeka

Father’s Fiddle

This is a boys’ game. One boy says to another, “Divv (do) ye ken (know) aboot my father’s fiddle?” On replying that he does not, the questioner takes hold of the other’s right hand with his left, and stretches out the arm. With his right hand he touches the arm gently above the elbow, and says, “My father had a fiddle, an’ he brook (broke) it here, an’ he brook it here” (touching it below the elbow), “an’ he brook it throw the middle,” and comes down with a sharp stroke on the elbow-joint.—Keith, Fochabers (Rev. W. Gregor).

This is probably the same game as that printed by Halliwell, No. cccxxxv., to which the following rhyme applied:—

Feed the Dove

Find the Ring

A ring of chairs is formed, and the players sit on them. A piece of string long enough to go round the inner circumference of the chairs is procured. A small ring is put upon the string, the ends of which are then tied. Then one of the players gets up from his chair and stands in the centre. The players sitting on the chairs take the string into their hands and pass the ring round from one to another, singing the lines. If the person standing in the centre can find out in whose hand the ring is, he sits down, and his place is taken by the one who had the ring. The game is sometimes played round a haycock in the hayfield.

Miss Dendy sends a similar rhyme from Monton, Lancashire, where it is known simply as a marching game. For similar rhymes, see Halliwell’s Nursery Rhymes, p. 3.

See “Paddy from Home,” “Tip it.”

Fippeny Morrell

See “Nine Men’s Morice,” “Noughts and Crosses.”

Fire, Air, and Water

Fivestones

This game was played by a newspaper boy at Richmond Station for me as follows:—He had five square pieces of tile or stone about the size of dice. He took all five pieces in the palm of the hand first, then threw them up and caught them on the back of the hand, and then from the back of the hand into the palm. Four of the stones were then thrown on the ground; the fifth was thrown up, one stone being picked up from the ground, and the descending fifth stone caught in the same hand; the other three pieces were next picked up in turn. Then two were picked up together in the same manner twice, then one, then three, then all four at once, the fifth stone being thrown up and caught with each movement. All five were then thrown up and caught on the back of the hand, and then thrown from the back and caught in the palm. When he dropped one, he picked it up between his outstretched fingers while the other stones remained on the back of the hand; then he tossed and caught it likewise. Then after throwing up the five stones and catching them on the back of the hand and the reverse, all five being kept in the palm, one was thrown up, and another deposited on the ground before the descending stone was caught. This was done to the three others in turn. Then with two at a time twice, then one and three, then all four together, then from the palm to the back of the hand, and again to the palm. This completed one game. If mistakes were made another player took the stones. Marks were taken for successful play. This boy called the game “Dabs.”—A. B. Gomme.

In South Notts this game was called “Snobs.” It was played with small stones or marbles. There were nine sets of tricks. First One-ers (of which there were five in the set), then Two-ers (two in set), Three-ers (three in set), Four-ers (four in set), Four Squares (four in set), Trotting Donkeys (eight in set, I believe), Fly-catchers (six or seven in set), Magic (five in set), and Magic Fly-catchers (five in set). One-ers is played thus:—The five stones are thrown into the air and caught on the back of the hand. If all are caught they are simply tossed up again and caught in the hollow of the hand, but if any are not caught they have to be picked up, one by one, another stone being at the same time thrown into the air and caught with the one picked up in the hand. Two-ers, Three-ers, and Four-ers, are played in the same way, except that the stones not caught on the back of the hand have to be arranged in twos, threes, and fours respectively by the hand on which the caught stones are lying meanwhile, and then each lot has to be picked up altogether. If the number that fall when the stones are first thrown up won’t allow of this, the player has to drop the required number (but no more) from his hand. In Magic the play is just the same as in One-ers, except that instead of only throwing up a single stone and catching it as the others are in turn picked up, the whole number, except those remaining to be picked up, are thrown and caught. In Four Squares, four of the stones are arranged in a square, each of them is then picked up, whilst the remaining stone is flung upwards and caught; the one picked up is then tossed up, and the one originally tossed up is put down in the place of the other, which is caught as it descends, and the process repeated “all round the square.” Trotting Donkeys is similarly played, except that the four stones are arranged in a line—not in a square—and I believe there is some other slight difference, but I forget what. Fly-catchers is played like One-ers, except that the stone thrown into the air while the others are being picked up, is not simply caught by being allowed to fall into the hand, but by an outward movement of the hand is pounced on, hawk-fashion, from above. Magic Fly-catchers is played in precisely the same way, except that as in simple Magic, not one stone, but all are thrown up and caught—that is, if there are four on the ground one only is thrown up for the first, two for the second, three for the third, and so on until they are all picked up. This is, of course, the most difficult part of all, and, in fact, only experts were expected to do it. Every failure means “out,” and then your opponent has his turn. The winner is the one who gets through first. Such is the game as I remember it, but I have an uneasy suspicion that I have missed something out. I seem to remember one trick in which all the stones on the ground had to be picked up at once where they lay—scrambled up so to speak. Or it may be (and, in fact, I think it was) that sometimes, to add to the difficulty of the game, we picked up the groups of two, three, and four in Two-ers, Three-ers, and Four-ers in this fashion, instead of first placing them together.—Epworth, Doncaster (C. C. Bell).

In Wakefield the set of pot checks, which represents five hucklebones, now consists of four checks and a ball about the size of a large marble. The checks are something like dice, but only two opposite sides are plain, the other four being fluted. The table played on is generally a doorstep, and it is made ready by drawing a ring upon it with anything handy which will make a mark. There are twelve figures or movements to be gone through as follows. Some have special names, but I do not learn that all have.

1. The player, taking the checks and ball in the right hand, throws down the checks, keeping the ball in the hand. If any check fall outside the ring the player is “down.” There is skill needed in the throwing of the checks in this and the following movements, so that they may be conveniently placed for taking up in the proper order. The checks being scattered, the player throws up the ball, takes up one check, and catches the ball as it comes down, or, as it is sometimes played, after it has bounced once from the step. This is repeated till all the checks are taken up.

2. As the last figure, but the checks are taken up two at a throw.

3. As the last, but at the first throw one check, called the Horse, is taken up, and at the second the remaining three checks at once, called the Cart.

4. As before, but all the checks taken up together.

5. Called Ups and Downs. The checks are taken up at one throw, and set down outside the ring at the next. This is done first with one, then with two, and so on.

6. Each check is touched in turn as the ball is thrown.

7. The checks are separately pushed out of the ring.

8. Each check in turn is taken up and knocked against the ground.

9. Each check is taken up and tapped upon another.

10. The checks are first arranged three in a line, touching each other, and the fourth placed at the top of that at one end of the row. This is called the Cradle. It has to be taken down check by check, and if, in taking one, another is moved, the player is out.

11. Like the last, but the checks are put one above another to make a Chimney.

12. Called the Dish-clout—I know not why, unless it be that it wipes up the game. The movement used in taking up the checks is thus described:—“Take hold of the sleeve of the right hand with the left; throw up the ball, and twist your right hand underneath and over your left, and catch the ball. With the hand still twisted throw up the ball and untwist and catch it.” The checks are picked up in the course of the twisting.

These I am told are the orthodox movements; and I do not doubt that in them there is much of very old tradition, although the tenth and eleventh must have been either added or modified since pot checks came into use, for the figures could not be built up with the natural bones. Some other movements are sometimes used according to fancy, as for example the clapping of the ground with the palm of the hand before taking up the checks and catching the ball.—J. T. Micklethwaite (Arch. Journ., xlix. 327-28).

I am told that in the iron districts of Staffordshire, the round bits of iron punched out in making rivet holes in boiler plates are the modern representatives of hucklebones.—Ibid.

In Westminster four stones are held in the right hand, a marble is thrown up, and all four stones thrown down, and the marble allowed to bounce on the hearthstone or pavement, and then caught in the same hand after it has rebounded. The marble is then thrown up again, and one of the four stones picked up, and the marble caught again after it has rebounded. This is done separately to the other three, bringing all four stones into the hand. The marble is again bounced, and all four stones thrown down and the marble caught. Two stones are then picked up together, then the other two, then one, then three together, then all four together, the marble being tossed and caught with each throw. An arch is then formed by placing the left hand on the ground, and the four stones are again thrown down, the marble tossed, and the four stones put separately into the arch, the marble being caught after it has rebounded each time; or the four stones are separately put between the fingers of the left hand in as straight a row as possible. Then the left hand is taken away, and the four stones caught up in one sweep of the hand. Then all four stones are thrown down, and one is picked up before the marble is caught. This is retained in the hand, and when the second stone is picked up the first one is laid down before the marble is caught; the third is picked up and the second laid down, the fourth picked up and the third laid down, then the fourth laid down, the marble being tossed and caught again each time. The stones have different names or marks (which follow in rotation), and in picking them up they must be taken in their proper order, or it is counted as a mistake. The game is played throughout by the right hand, the left hand only being used when “arches” is made. The marble should be thrown up about the same height each toss, and there should be little or no interval between the different figures.—Annie Dicker.

I saw this game played in Endell Street, London, W.C., by two girls. Their game was not so long nor so complete as the above. They did not throw all four stones down as a preliminary stage, but began with the second figure, the four gobs being placed in a square ∷, nor were they particular as to which stones they picked up. They knew nothing of numbering or naming them. Their marble was called a “jack.” They had places chalked on the pavement where they recorded their successful “goes,” and the game was played in a ring.—A. B. Gomme.

An account sent me from Deptford (Miss Chase) is doubtless the same game. It begins with taking two “gobs” at once, and apparently there are eight stones or gobs to play with. The marble or round stone which is thrown up is called a “tally.” The directions for playing are—