This Eldorado has many different local names--_Van Diemen's land_ in
Connecticut; _Dixie's land_ in New York, an expression which antedates
the war; _Judge Jeffrey's land_, in Devonshire, England; _Golden
Pavement_, in Philadelphia.
In the Southern States, "Tommy Tidler's Ground" is the name of the
spot where the rainbow rests, and where it is supposed by children that
a pot of gold is buried. A highly intelligent Georgian assures us that
as a boy he has often searched for the treasure, but could never find
the spot where the rainbow touched the ground.
"Tommy Tidler" represents the jealous fairy or dwarf who attacks any
who approach his treasure.
No. 157.
_Dixie's Land._
This is a variety of the last game, in which a monarch instead of a
fairy is the owner of the ground trespassed upon. A line having been
drawn, to bound "Dixie's Land," the players cross the frontier with the
challenge:
On Dixie's land I'll take my stand,
And live and die in Dixie.
The king of Dixie's Land endeavors to seize an invader, whom he must
hold long enough to repeat the words,
Ten times one are ten,
You are one of my men.
All so captured must assist the king in taking the rest.
The word "man" seems to be used in the ancient sense of subject, as
in the Scotch formula, where one boy takes another by the forelock (a
reminiscence of serfdom), saying,
Tappie, tappie, tousie, will you be my man?
The game is played in much the same manner in Germany, with a rhyme
which may be translated:
King, I'm standing on your land,
I steal your gold and silver-sand.
No. 158.
_Ghost in the Cellar._
One of the children represents a ghost, and conceals himself in the
cellar. Another takes the part of a mother, who is addressed by one of
her numerous family:
"Mother, I see a ghost."
"It was only your father's coat hanging up."
Mother goes down with a match. Ghost appears. Terror and flight.
Whoever is caught becomes the ghost for the next turn.
A similar game is played in London, called (we are told) "Ghost in the
Copper."
The original of the "ghost" appears in the corresponding German game,
where we find in his stead the "evil spirit," who haunts the garden.
No. 159.
_The Enchanted Princess._
This interesting European game, though never naturalized in this
country, has been occasionally played as a literal translation from the
printed French. A little girl raises above her head her frock, which
is sustained by her companions, who thus represent the tower in which
she is supposed to be confined. The "enemy" comes up, and asks, "Where
is pretty Margaret?" The answer is, "She is shut up in her tower." The
"enemy" carries off one by one the stones of the tower (leads away,
that is, the girls who personate stones), until one only is left, who
drops the frock, and flies, pursued by Margaret, who must catch some
one to replace her.
The celebrated French song begins, "Where is fair Margaret, Ogier,
noble knight?"[145] "Ogier" is none other than Olger the Dane, hero
of mediæval romance. The childish drama is one form of the world-old
history of a maiden who is delivered by a champion from the enchanted
castle. In the territory of Cambrai, she who is shut up in the tower
is said to be "the fair one with the golden locks." We consider the
following number to be a variation of the same theme.
No. 160.
_The Sleeping Beauty._
About fifty years since, in a town of Massachusetts (Wrentham), the
young people were in the habit of playing an exceedingly rustic
kissing-game. A girl in the centre of the ring simulated sleep, and the
words were--
There was a young lady sat down to sleep;
She wants a young gentleman to wake her up;
Mr. ---- ---- shall be his name.
The awakening was then effected by a kiss.
The same game comes to us as a negro sport from Galveston, Texas, but
in a form which shows it to be the corruption of an old English round:
Here we go round the _strawberry bush_,
This cold and frosty morning.
Here's a young lady sat down to sleep,
This cold and frosty morning.
She wants a young gentleman to wake her up,
This cold and frosty morning.
Write his name and send it by me,
This cold and frosty morning.
Mr. ---- his name is called,
This cold and frosty morning.
Arise, arise, upon your feet,
This cold and frosty morning.
Some unintelligible negro rhymes follow.
The refrain of the last version indicates that it is of old English
origin, and was used as a May-game.
It would appear, from the character of the round, that various
names are proposed to the sleeping girl, which she rejects until a
satisfactory one is presented. At all events, this is the case in a
Provençal game which we take to be of the same origin as ours. In this
game it is explained that the girl is not asleep, but counterfeiting
death. "Alas! what shall we give our sister? N. N. to be her husband."
A favorite French round describes the maiden as asleep "in the tower."
The pretty song represents her as awakened by the rose her lover
has left upon her breast. Though there is no very close resemblance
between this and the Provençal game, the same idea of deliverance from
enchantment appears to underlie both.
We infer, therefore, that the game, apparently so natural an invention,
originally represented some form of the world-wide story of the
"Sleeping Beauty." If this be so, to explain its history would lead us
to write of Northern lay and mediæval legend; we should have to examine
the natural symbolism of primitive religions, and the loves of ancient
gods. The kissing-romp of a New England village would be connected with
the poetry and romance of half the world.
In any case, this interlinking of the New World with all countries and
ages, by the golden network of oral tradition, may supply the moral of
our collection.