—Liphook, Hants (Miss Fowler).
II.
—Earls Heaton, Yorks. (H. Hardy).
(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]
—Fraserburgh (Rev. W. Gregor).
All sing to “especially,” boy chooses girl, and then the two whirl round, and all sing to the end.
Two persons sit down feet to feet and catch a stick with their hands; then whoever lifteth the other is the strongest.—Mactaggart’s Gallovidian Encyclopædia.
Compare “Honey pots.”
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.”
The Dorset game of “See-saw.”—Halliwell’s Dictionary.
The blossoms of cowslips collected together tied in a globular form, and used to toss to and fro for an amusement called “Teesty-Tosty,” or simply sometimes “Tosty.”—Somerset (Holloway’s Dict. of Provincialisms).
A writer in Byegones for July 1890, p. 142, says, “Tuswball” means a bunch. He gives the following rhyme, used when tossing the ball:—
Then repeating letters of the alphabet until the ball falls, and the letter last called will indicate the sweetheart’s name.
See “Ball,” “Shuttlefeather,” “Trip Trout.”
The East Anglian game of “See-saw.”—Halliwell’s Dictionary.
See “Totum.”
—Sheffield (S. O. Addy).
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.
A game described by Ben Jonson in his play of Cynthia’s Revels (act iv. scene 1). The passage is as follows:—
“Phantaste. Nay, we have another sport afore this, of ‘A thing done, and who did it,’ &c.
“Philantia. Ay, good Phantaste, let’s have that: distribute the places.
“Phantaste. Why, I imagine A thing done; Hedon thinks who did it; Maria, with what it was done; Anaides, where it was done; Argurion, when it was done; Amorphus, for what cause was it done; you, Philantia, what followed upon the doing of it; and this gentleman, who would have done it better. . . .”
Gifford thinks that this sport was probably the diversion of the age, and of the same stamp with our modern “Cross Purposes,” “Questions,” and “Commands,” &c.
[Play]
—Miss Dendy.
[Play]
—Harpenden (Miss Lloyd).
—London (Miss Dendy).
—Belfast (W. H. Patterson).
—Bocking, Essex (Folk-lore Record, iii. 170).
—Harpenden (Mrs. Lloyd).
—Liphook, Hants (Miss Fowler).
—Parish Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect.
—Blackwood’s Magazine, August 1821.
—Ross-shire (Rev. W. Gregor).
—Lincoln (C. C. Bell).
—Hanbury, Staffs. (Miss Edith Hollis).
—Warwickshire, Northall’s Folk Rhymes, 397.
—Ellesmere, Burne’s Shropshire Folk-lore, p. 321.
(b.) The children stand in two long rows, each holding the hands of the opposite child, the two last forming an arch. They sing the lines, and while doing so the other children run under the raised arms. When all have passed under, the first two hold up their hands, and so on again and again, each pair in turn becoming the arch. Mrs. Lloyd (Harpenden version) says the two first hold up a handkerchief, and the children all run under, beginning with the last couple. In the London version (Miss Dendy) the “last line is called out in quite different tones from the rest of the rhyme. It is reported to have a most startling effect.” The Warwickshire version is played differently. The players, after passing under the clasped hands, all circle or wind round one of their number, who stands still.
(c.) In some cases the verse, “How many miles to Babylon?” is sung before the verses for “Thread the needle,” and the reference made (ante, vol. i., p. 238) to an old version seems to suggest the origin of the game. This, at all events, goes far to prove that the central idea of the game is not connected with the sewing needle, but with an interesting dance movement, which is called by analogy, Thread the needle. It is, however, impossible to say whether the verses of this game are the fragments of an older and more lengthy original, which included both the words of “How many miles to Babylon” and “Thread the needle,” or whether these two were independent games, which have become joined; but, on the whole, I am inclined to think that “Thread the needle,” at all events, is an independent game, or the central idea of an independent game, and one of some antiquity.
This game is well illustrated by custom. At Trowbridge, in Wilts, a game, known as “Thread the needle,” used to be the favourite sport with the lads and lasses on the evening of Shrove Tuesday festival. The vocal accompaniment was always the following:—
—Notes and Queries, 5th series, xi. p. 227.
At Bradford-on-Avon, as soon as the “pancake bell” rang at eleven A.M., the school children had holiday for the remainder of the day, and when the factories closed for the night, at dusk the boys and girls of the town would run through the streets in long strings playing “Thread the needle,” and whooping and hallooing their best as they ran, and so collecting all they could together by seven or eight o’clock, when they would adjourn to the churchyard, where the old sexton had opened the churchyard gates for them; the children would then join hands in a long line until they encompassed the church; they then, with hands still joined, would walk round the church three times; and when dismissed by the old sexton, would return to their homes much pleased that they “Clipped the Church,” and shouting similar lines to those said at Trowbridge.
At South Petherton, in South Somerset, sixty or seventy years ago, it was the practice of the young folk of both sexes to meet in or near the market-place, and there commence “Threading the needle” through the streets, collecting numbers as they went. When this method of recruiting ceased to add to their ranks, they proceeded, still threading the needle, to the church, which they tried to encircle with joined hands; and then, whether successful or not, they returned to their respective homes. Old people, who remember having taken part in the game, say that it always commenced in the afternoon or evening of Shrove Tuesday, “after having eaten of their pancakes.” In Leicestershire County Folk-lore, p. 114, Mr. Billson records that it was formerly the custom on Shrove Tuesday for the lads and lasses to meet in the gallery of the Women’s Ward in Trinity Hospital to play at “Thread the Needle” and similar games.
At Evesham the custom is still more distinctly connected with the game, as the following quotation shows:—“One custom of the town is connected with a sport called ‘Thread my needle,’ a game played here by the children of the town throughout the various streets at sunset upon Easter Monday, and at no other period throughout the year. The players cry while elevating their arms arch-wise—
—May’s History of Evesham, p. 319.
As all these customs occur in the early spring of the year, there is reason to think that in this game we have a relic of the oldest sacred dances, and it is at least a curious point that in two versions (Bocking and Ellesmere) the Anglo-Saxon title of “Lady” is applied to the Queen.
The writer in Blackwood’s Magazine, who quotes the rhymes as “immemorial,” says: “Another game played by a number of children, with a hold of one another, or ‘tickle tails,’ as it is technically called in Scotland, is ‘Through the needle-e’e.’” Moor (Suffolk Words and Phrases) mentions the game. Patterson (Antrim and Down Glossary) gives it as “Thread the needle and sew.” Barnes (Dorset Glossary) calls it “Dred the wold woman’s needle,” in which two children join hands, and the last leads the train under the lifted arms of the first two. Holloway (Dictionary of Provincialisms) says the children form a ring, holding each other’s hands; then one lets go and passes under the arms of two who still join hands, and the others all follow, holding either by each other’s hands or by a part of their dress. “At Ellesmere,” Miss Burne says, “this game was formerly called ‘Crew Duck.’ It now only survives among little girls, and is only played on a special day.” It is alluded to in Poor Robin’s Almanack for 1738: “The summer quarter follows spring as close as girls do one another when playing at Thread my needle; they tread upon each other’s heels.” Strutt calls this “Threading the Taylor’s needle.” Newell (Games of American Children) gives some verses, and describes it as played in America.
See “How many miles to Babylon,” “Through the Needle ’ee.”
Two players hold up their joined hands, the rest pass under one by one, repeating, “Three days’ holidays, three days’ holidays!” They pass under a second time, all repeating, “Bumping day, bumping day!” when the two leaders strike each player on the back in passing. The third time they say, “Catch, catch, catch!” and the leaders catch the last in the train between their arms. He has the choice of “strawberries or grapes,” and is placed behind one of the leaders, according to his answer. When all have been “caught,” the two parties pull against each other.—Berrington (Burne’s Shropshire Folk-lore, p. 522).
“Holidays,” says Miss Burne, “anciently consisted of three days, as at Easter and Whitsuntide, which explains the words of this game;” and the manorial work days were formerly three a week. See “Currants and Raisins.”
[Play]
—Madeley, Shropshire (Miss Burne).
[Play]
—Biggar, Lanarkshire (W. Ballantyne).
[Play]
—Sporle, Norfolk (Miss Matthews).
[Play]
—Isle of Man (A. W. Moore).
—Madeley, Salop (Miss Burne), 1891.
[Another Shropshire version has for the fourth verse—
Or,
—Chirbury (Shropshire Folk-lore, p. 517).
Or,
—Leicester (Miss Ellis).
—Oxfordshire version, brought into Worcestershire (Miss Broadwood).