_THE LADY OF THE LAND_
Associations dating from heathen times are preserved in other
traditional games, the full meaning of which becomes apparent only when
we compare these with their foreign parallels. Some of these games in
their cruder and more primitive forms are sports, in which dialogue
takes the place of rhymed verses, and in which the characters that are
introduced are frequently spoken of as animals.
Among the dancing and singing games first described by Halliwell is one
called by him _The Lady of the Land_. In this game one side is taken by
a mother and her daughters, the other by a second woman, and the game
consists in the daughters changing sides. The verses that are recited
are as follows:--
Here comes a woman from Babyland,
With three small children in her hand.
One can brew, the other can bake,
The other can make a pretty round cake.
One can sit in the garden and spin,
Another can make a fine bed for a king.
Pray m'am will you take one in? (1846, p. 121.)
One child is then pointed out and passes to the other side, and this is
continued till all are selected.
Twelve further variations of the words used in playing this game were
recovered from different parts of the country by Mrs. Gomme (1894, I,
313). Of these two, one from Shropshire (No. 3) and one from the Isle of
Wight (No. 6), like that of Halliwell, designate the woman as "from
Babyland." Others, from the Isle of Man and from Galloway (Appendix),
describe her as from Babylon, while further variations mention Sandiland
(No. 9), Cumberland (Berks, No. 8), and others. The word Babyland, which
occurs in three out of thirteen variations of the game, is probably the
original one, for it has a parallel in the corresponding German game in
the name _Engelland_, the land of the spirits of the unborn.
The Babyland game in a more primitive form is known as _Little Dog I
call you_, in which the players also change sides (1894, I, 330). In
this game, the one side is taken by a girl who looks after a number of
children, the other by a girl who is designated as _Little Dog_, and who
stands apart. The children secretly impart their wishes to their owner
or leader, who warns them against laughing, and then calls the Little
Dog and tells him to pick out the child who has expressed such and such
a wish. Should this child laugh by inadvertence, she at once goes over
to the Little Dog. If not, the dog is left to guess who has imparted the
wish, and by doing so he secures the child. If he fails to guess aright,
the child goes and stands behind the leader and is altogether removed
out of the reach of the Little Dog. This is continued till all belong to
one side or the other, and the game concludes with a tug of war.
The games of _The Lady of the Land_ and _Little Dog_ have parallels in
the foreign game of children changing sides, fourteen variations of
which were collected from different parts of northern Europe by
Mannhardt (M., p. 273). The closest parallel to _The Lady of the Land_
is played in Belgium, in which sides are taken by two leaders, of whom
the one has many daughters and the other has none. The game is called
_Riche et pauvre_ and the following verses are sung:--
Je suis pauvre, je suis pauvre, Anne Marie Jacqueline;
Je suis pauvre dans ce jeu d'ici.--
Je suis riche, je suis riche, Anne Marie Jacqueline;
Je suis riche dans ce jeu d'ici.--
Donnez-moi un de vos enfants, Anne Marie Jacqueline,
Donnez-moi un de vos enfants, dans ce jeu d'ici. (M., No. 13.)
"I am poor, I am poor in this game, I am rich in this game. Give me
one of your children, in this game."
This is continued as in the Babyland game till every child has had its
turn. There is no sequel.
In the German game the woman who owns the children is called sometimes
Mary, sometimes Witch, but usually she has the name of a heathen
divinity. Thus in Mecklenburg she is _Fru Goden_ or _Fru Gol_ (No. 11).
Gode is the name of a mother divinity, who, as _Godmor_, is the mother
of Thor (Gr., p. 209, note). In the game as played in Prussia (No. 10),
in Elsass (No. 3), in Swabia (No. 2), and in Aargau (No. 4), she is
_Frau Ros_ or _Frau Rose_, that is Lady Ros or Rose; while in
Pommerellen she is either _Ole Moder Rose_ or _Ole Moder Taersche_ (No.
1), a word that signifies witch. In Holstein, on the other hand, the
alternative is recorded as _Fru Rosen_ or _Mutter Marie_, Mother Mary
(No. 9), while in Appenzell (No. 5) and near Dunkirk (No. 6) the owner
of the children is _Marei Muetter Gotts_, i.e. Mary the Mother of God.
Mannhardt points out that Ross, sometimes Rose, is the name of a German
mother divinity who occurs frequently in German folk-lore. I have come
across Mother Ross in our own chapbook literature, where the name may be
traditional also. Mary indicates the substitution of a Christian name in
the place of the older heathen one. In Sweden the owner of many babes is
_Fru Sole_, who is represented as sitting in heaven surrounded by her
daughters, who are described as chickens (No. 14).
The game of securing children is called in Switzerland _Das Englein
aufziehen_ (No. 5), that is, "the drawing forth of an angel." The word
_Engel_, angel, according to the information collected by Mannhardt,
originally designates the spirit that awaits re-birth. For the heathen
inhabitants of Northern Europe, including the Kelts, were unable to
realize individual death. They held that the living spirit passed away
with death, but continued in existence, and again reappeared under
another shape. In the civilization that belonged to the mother age,
these spirits or angels that awaited re-birth, peopled the realm which
was associated with divine mothers or mother divinities. At a later
period, transferred into Christian belief, they were pictured as a host
of winged babes, whom we find represented in mediaeval art hovering
around the Virgin Mother and Child.
The land in which the unborn spirits dwelt, is generally spoken of in
German nursery and folk rhymes as _Engelland_, an expression which forms
a direct parallel to the expression Babyland of our game. Thus the
_Woman of Babyland_, like _Frau Rose_ or _Frau Gode_ of the German
game, was in all probability a divine mother, who was the owner of the
spirits or babes that awaited re-birth.
In the estimation of Mannhardt, the game in which children are drawn
from one woman into the possession of the other, preserves the relics of
a ceremonial connected with the cult of the mother divinity. It visibly
set forth how the spirits of the departed were drawn back into life (M.,
p. 319). Perhaps we may go a step further. The study of folk-lore has
taught us that to simulate a desired result is one way of working for
its attainment. Women who were desirous of becoming mothers, both in
England and in Germany, were wont to rock an empty cradle. They also
visited particular shrines. Of the rites which they practised there we
know nothing. Perhaps the Babyland game originated not as an ideal
conception, but preserves the relics of a rite by which women sought to
promote motherhood. This assumption is supported by various features
that are incidental to the game.
Thus the game, both in England and abroad, is essentially a girls'
game, and the words that are used indicate that it is played by them
only. Even where the generality of the players are designated as
"children," the leaders are invariably girls.
Again, in some versions of the foreign game (Nos. 8, 9) there is mention
of salt. The woman who asks for a child, complains that she has lost
those that were given to her; she is told that she ought to have
sprinkled them with salt (No. 8). Sprinkling with salt is still observed
at Christian baptism in some districts, and such sprinkling is said to
make a child safe.[40]
[40] Cf. Addy, S. O., _House Tales and Traditional Remains_, 1895,
pp. 86, 120.
Again, in the game as played abroad the child that is chosen is put to
the test if it can be made to laugh (Nos. 2, 4, 5, 8). In the game of
_Little Dog_ also, the child that laughs passes into the keeping of a
new owner. Laughing indicates quickening into life, and in folk-lore
generally the child that refrains from laughing is reckoned uncanny.
Numerous stories are told of the changeling that was made to laugh and
disappeared, when the real child was found restored to its cradle.
Again, in the foreign game the player who seeks to secure a child speaks
of herself as lame, and limps in order to prove herself so (Nos. 1, 2,
14). In one instance she attributes her limping to a bone in her leg.
Limping, in the estimation of Mannhardt, is peculiar to the woman who
has borne children (M., p. 305). For in German popular parlance the
woman who is confined, is said to have been bitten by the stork who
brought the child.
A reminiscence of this idea lurks in our proverb rhyme:--
The wife who expects to have a good name,
Is always at home as if she were lame;
And the maid that is honest, her chiefest delight
Is still to be doing from morning till night.[41]
[41] Bohn, H., _A Handbook of Proverbs_, 1901, p. 43.
Again, in one version of the foreign game the children that are won over
are given the names of dogs, and when their former owner attempts to get
them back, they rush at her and bark (No. 1). This corresponds to our
game of _Little Dog_, in which the child that stands apart is addressed
as "Little Dog I call you." Grimm declared himself at a loss to account
for the fact that a dog was associated with the Norns or Fate-maidens
who assisted at childbirth (Gr., p. 339); Mannhardt cites the belief
that the spirits of the dead were sometimes spoken of as dogs (M., p.
301); and in England there also exists a superstition that the winds
that rush past at night are dogs, the so-called Gabriel hounds or
ratchets (cf. below, p. 165).
Features preserved in other games contain similar suggestions which are
worth noting.
Thus in the game known as _Drop-handkerchief_ one girl holding a
kerchief goes round the others who are arranged in a circle, saying:--
I have a little dog and it won't bite you
It won't bite you, it won't bite you [_ad lib._]
It _will_ bite you. (1894, I, 109.)
The person on whom _the little dog_ is bestowed is "bitten"; that is,
she is in the same predicament as the German woman who is bitten by the
stork, and the limping woman of the German Babyland game.
In playing _Drop-handkerchief_ in Deptford the children sing:--
I had a little dog whose name was Buff,
I sent him up the street for a pennyworth of snuff.
He broke my box and spilt my snuff
I think my story is long enough--
'Taint you, 'taint you, and 'taint you, but 'tis you.
(1894, I, p. 111.)
In the collection of Nursery Songs by Rusher stands the following
rhyme:--
I had a little dog and they called him Buff,
I sent him to a shop to buy me snuff,
But he lost the bag and spilt the stuff;
I sent him no more but gave him a cuff,
For coming from the mart without any snuff.
"Bufe" as a word for a dog occurs as far back as 1567.[42]
[42] Murray's Dictionary: _Bufe_.