elements of custom and usage which would not primarily originate in a
game, but in a condition of local or tribal life which has long since
passed away. It is a life of contest, a life, therefore, which existed
before the days of settled politics, when villages or tribal territories
had their own customs differing from each other, and when not only
matters of political relationship were settled by the arbitrament of the
sword, but matters now considered to be of purely personal relationship,
namely, marriage. While great interest gathers round the particular
marriage customs or particular contests indicated in this group of
games, the chief point of interest lies in the fact that they are all
governed by the common element of contest.
I will now turn to the circle games. Like the line games, this form
contains games which show marriage custom, but it is significant that
they all show a distinctly different form of marriage. Thus they all
show courtship and love preceding the marriage, and they show that a
distinct ceremony of marriage is needful; but this ceremony is not
necessarily the present Church ceremony. The two best examples are
"Sally Water" (vol. ii. pp. 149-179) and "Merry-ma-tansa" (vol. i. pp.
369-367).
In "Sally Water" the two principal characters have no words to say, but
one chooses another deliberately, and the bond is sealed by a kiss, and
in some instances with joining of hands. The circle of friends approve
the choice, and a blessing and good wishes follow for the happiness of
the married couple, wishes that children may be born to them, and the
period of the duration of the marriage for seven years (the popular
notion of the time for which the marriage vows are binding). I have
printed a great many versions of this game (about fifty), and note that
in the majority of them "Sally" and "Water" are conspicuous words. In
fact they are usually taken to mean the name of the girl, but on
examining the game closely I think it is possible, and probable, that
"Sally Water" may be a corruption of some other word or words, not the
name of a girl; that the word "Water" is connected, not with the name of
the maiden, but with the action of sprinkling which she is called upon
to fulfil. The mention of water is pretty constant throughout the game.
There are numerous instances of the corruption of words in the game, and
the tendency has been to lose the sprinkling of water incident
altogether.
The sitting or kneeling attitude, which indicates a reverential
attitude, obtains in nearly all versions, as do the words "Rise and
choose a young man," and "Crying for a young man." This "crying" for a
young man does not necessarily mean weeping; rather I consider it to
mean "announcing a want" in the way "wants" or "losses" were cried
formerly by the official crier of a town, and in the same manner as in
games children "cry" forfeits; but, losing this meaning in this game,
children have substituted "weeping," especially as "weeping" with them
expresses many "wants" or "woes." The incident of "crying" for a lover,
in the sense of wanting a lover, appears in several of these games. I
have heard the expression they've been "cried in church" used as meaning
the banns have been read. The choosing is sometimes "to the east" and
"to the west," instead of "for the best and worst." Now, the expression
"for better for worse" is an old marriage formula preserved in the
vernacular portion of the ancient English Marriage Service, and I think
we have the same formula in this game, especially as the final
admonition is to choose the "one loved best." Then comes the very
general lines of the marriage formula occurring so frequently in these
games, "Now you're married, we wish you joy," &c.
In "Merry-ma-tansa" the game again consists of a marriage ceremony, with
fuller details. The choice of the girl is announced to the assembled
circle of friends by a third person, and the friends announce their
approval or disapproval. If they disapprove, another choice is made.
When they approve, the marriage formula is repeated, and the capacity of
the bride to undertake housewifely duties is questioned in verse by the
friends (p. 370). All the circle then perform actions imitating sweeping
and dusting a house, baking and brewing, shaping and sewing. The
marriage formula is sung, and prognostications and wishes for the birth
of children are followed by actions denoting the nursing of a baby and
going to church, probably for a christening. In one version, too, the
bride is lifted into the circle by two of the players. This may indicate
the carrying of the bride into her new home, or the lifting of the bride
across the threshold, a well-known custom. In another version (Addenda,
p. 444) after the ceremony the bridegroom is blindfolded and has to
catch his bride.
These two games relate undoubtedly to marriage customs, and to no other
ceremony or practice. They are, so to speak, the type forms to which
others will assimilate.
In "Isabella" (vol. i. pp. 247-56) the actions indicate a more modern
marriage ceremony. The young couple, after choosing, go to church, clasp
hands, put on ring, kneel down, say prayers, kiss, and eat dinner. The
clasping of hands, putting on a ring, and kissing are more like a solemn
betrothal before a marriage ceremony.
In the other marriage games which show remains of a ceremony are those
of the kind to which "All the Boys" belongs (vol. i. pp. 2-6). In this
game, customs which belong to a rough and rude state of society are
indicated. The statement is made that a man cannot be happy without a
wife. He "huddles" and "cuddles" the girl, and "puts her on his knee."
The principal thing here to be noted is the mention in all versions of
this game the fact that some food is prepared by the bride, which she
gives to the bridegroom to eat. This, although called a "pudding,"
refers, of course, to the bridal cake, and to the old custom of the
bride preparing it herself, and giving some to her husband first.
Other rhymes of this kind, belonging, probably, to the same game, are
"Down in the Valley," "Mary mixed a Pudding," "Oliver, Oliver, follow
the King," "Down in Yonder Meadow." In all these the making and eating
of a particular "pudding" or food is mentioned as an important item; in
two, catching and kissing the sweetheart is mentioned; and in all,
"courting" and "cuddling"; articles for domestic use are said to be
bought by the bride. The formal ceremony of marriage is contained in the
verbal contract of the two parties, and the important ceremony of the
bridegroom and bride partaking of the bridal food. The eating together
of the same food is an essential part of the ceremony among some savage
and semi-civilised peoples. The rhymes have a peculiar parallel in the
rude and rough customs associated with betrothal and marriage which
prevailed in Wales and the North of England.
In "Poor Mary sits a-weeping" (vol. ii. pp. 46-62) we have very
distinctly the desire of the girl for a "lover." She is "weeping" for a
sweetheart, and, as in the case of "Sally Water," her weeping or
"crying" is to make her "want" known. She is told by her companions to
rise and make her choice. In some versions the marriage lines follow, in
others the acceptance of the choice ends with the giving of a kiss.
Others of a similar kind are "Here stands a Young Man who wants a
Sweetheart" (vol. i. p. 204), "Silly Old Man who wants a Wife" (vol. ii.
196-99). This is a simple announcement of the young man's need for a
wife or sweetheart (probably originally intended to announce his having
arrived at manhood, as expressed in the expression, "he ain't a man till
he's got a sweetheart and gone a-courtin'"). These verses are followed
by the marriage formula. Games of this kind are used for a kiss in the
ring game, without the chasing and capturing. The ordinary kiss in the
ring games are probably relics of older custom. These consist of one
person going round the assembled circle with a handkerchief and choosing
another of the opposite sex, after saying a nominy or form of set words.
This was probably originally something in the shape of a "counting out"
rhyme, to obtain sweethearts by "lot." A chase follows, and capture of
the girl, and the giving and receiving of a kiss in the circle. This was
a method of choosing sweethearts which prevailed until quite a late
period at country festivals and fairs, but at an earlier period was a
serious function. It is still customary on Easter and Whit-Monday for
this game to be played on village greens, and the introduction thus
afforded is held sufficient to warrant continued acquaintance between
young people.
In connection with this class of games I must point out that a game such
as "Hey, Wullie Wine" (vol. i. pp. 207-210), though it cannot be
considered exactly a marriage game, points to the matter-of-fact way in
which it was customary for young people to possess sweethearts. It seems
to have been thought not only desirable, but necessary to their social
standing. A slur is cast on the young man or young woman who has no
lover, and so every facility is given them to make a choice from among
their acquaintances. In the game "King William" is a remnant of the
disguising of the bride among some of her girl friends and the
bridegroom's test of recognition, when that custom became one of the
forms of amusement at weddings.
The remaining love and marriage games mostly consist of lines said in
praise of some particular girl or young man, the necessity of him or her
possessing a sweetheart, and their being married. These are probably
fragments of the more complete forms preserved in the other games of
this class. Marriage games, preceded by courtship or love-making, are
played in the second method of the circle form.
Among the games played in the first method of the circle form, "Oats and
Beans and Barley," and "Would you know how doth the Peasant," show
harvest customs. The first of these (vol. ii. pp. 1-13) shows us a time
when oats, beans, and barley were the principal crops grown, before
wheat--now, and for some time, one of the principal crops--came into
such general cultivation as at present. All the players join in singing
the words and performing the actions. They imitate sowing of seed,
folding arms and standing at ease while the corn is growing, clap hands
and stamp on the ground to awake the earth goddess, and turning round
and bowing, to propitiate the spirit and do reverence to her. In "Would
you know how doth the Peasant" (ii. 399-401) we find actions performed
showing sowing, reaping, threshing, kneeling, and praying, and then
resting and sleeping. These actions are in both games accompanied by
dancing round hand in hand. These two games, then, take us back to a
time when a ceremony was performed by all engaged in sowing and reaping
grain; when it was thought necessary to the proper growth of the crops
that a religious ceremony should be performed to propitiate the earth
spirit. I believe these games preserve the tradition of the formula sung
and danced at the spring festivals, about which Mr. Frazer has written
so fully.
"Oats and Beans and Barley" also preserves a marriage formula, and after
the religious formula has been sung and danced, courting and marriage
follows. A partner is said to be wanted, is chosen, and the marriage
ceremony follows. The addition of this ceremony to the agricultural
custom is of considerable significance, especially as the period is that
of spring, when, according to Westermarck, natural human marriage, as
also animal pairing, takes place. It is evidently necessary to this game
for all the players to perform the same actions, and the centre player
is not required until the choosing a partner occurs. There is no centre
player in the other agricultural game, and no marriage occurs.
In "When I was a Young Girl" (ii. pp. 362-374) we have all players
performing actions denoting the principal events of their lives from
girlhood to old age. When young, enjoyment in the form of dancing is
represented (in present day versions, going to school is taking the
place of this), then courting, marriage, nursing a baby, and occupations
which women perform; the death of the baby and of husband follows, and
the woman takes in washing, drives a cart to support herself, and
finally gets old. Here, again, there is little doubt that this game owes
its origin to those dances originally sacred in character, in which men
and women performed actions, accompanied with song and dance, of the
same nature as those they wished or intended to perform seriously in
their own lives. "Mulberry Bush" is another descendant of this custom.
In "Green Gravel" and "Wallflowers" we have a death or funeral custom.
Originally there may have been other actions performed than those the
game contains now. These two are noticeable for the players turning
themselves round in the course of the play so that they face outwards.
It is this turning outwards, or "to the wall," which indicates hopeless
sorrow and grief, and there is some probability that the death mourned
is that of a maiden, by the other maidens of the village. The game is
not a representation of an ordinary funeral.
I must here refer to the game of "Rashes" (Addenda, ii. pp. 452, 453). I
have not succeeded in obtaining a version played now, and fear it is
lost altogether, which is, perhaps, not surprising, as the use of
"rushes" has practically ceased; but, as recorded by Mr. Radcliffe in
1873, there is no doubt it represented the survival of the time when
rushes were gathered and used with ceremony of a religious nature.
Even in the extremely simple "Ring a Ring of Roses" (ii. 108-111), now
only a nursery game played by very young children, there can be traced
a relationship to a dance, in which the use of flowers, and all the
dancers bowing or falling prostrate to the ground together, with loud
exclamations of delight obtained. It may well be that sneezing, an
imitation of which is an essential part of the game, was actually a
necessary part of the ceremonial, and sneezing was always considered of
sacred significance among primitive peoples. It is not probable that
children would introduce this of their own accord in a dance and "bop
down" game.
The games played in the third method of this group are also
representative of custom. In "Old Roger" (vol. ii. pp. 16-24), the
circle of players is stationary throughout; the circle sings the words
describing the story, and the other players or actors run into the
circle and act their several parts in dumb show. The story, it will be
seen, is not the acting of a funeral, but the planting of a tree over
the grave of a dead person by relatives and friends, and the spirit
connection which this tree has with the dead. The spirit of the dead
"Old Roger" enters the tree, and resents the carrying away of the fruit
by the old woman by jumping up and making her drop the apples.
Possession of the fruit would give her power over the spirit. That the
tree is sacred is clear; and I am tempted to suggest that we may
possibly have in this game a survival of the worship of the sacred tree,
and its attendant priest watching until killed by his successor, as
shown to us by Mr. Frazer in the story of the "Golden Bough."
"Round and Round the Village" (ii. pp. 122-143) shows us the performance
of a recurring festival very clearly in the words which accompany all
versions, "As we have done before." This conveys the idea of a special
event, the event in the game marriage, and I suggest that we have here a
periodical village festival, at which marriages took place. It is
characteristic of this, as in "Old Roger," that the chorus or circle
stand still and sing the event, while the two characters act. This
acting is the dancing round the village, going in and out the windows
and houses, then choosing a lover, and "follow her to London." It is
quite possible that the perambulation of boundaries with which festive
dances and courtship were often associated would originate this game.
The perambulation was a recurring custom periodically performed, and on
p. 142, vol. ii., I have given some instances of custom which, I think,
confirm this.
In "Who goes round my Stone Wall" we find the players in circle form,
standing still and representing the houses of a village (the stone
wall), and also animals. The game represents the stealing of sheep, one
by one, from the village, by a predatory animal or thief. In this game
the circle do not sing the story. That element has disappeared; the two
actors repeat a dialogue referring to the stealing of the sheep from the
"wall." This dialogue is short, and is disappearing. The game is not now
understood, and consequently is dying out. "Booman," another of the same
kind, represents a funeral. The grave is dug in action, Booman is
carried to his grave, the dirge is sang over him, and flowers are
pretended to be strewn over.
There are other circle games, which it is not needful to examine in
detail. They are fragmentary, and do not present any fresh features of
interest. It is, however, important to note that a few examples have
evidently been derived from love ballads, drinking songs, and toasts;
some of the dance games are of this origin. This may be explained by the
fact that children, knowing the general form of marriage games, would
naturally dance in circle form to any ballad verses in which marriage or
love and courtship occurs, and in this manner the ballad would become
apparently a fresh game, though it would only be putting new words to an
old formula of action.
Dr. Jacob Jacobsen, in _Dialect and Place Names of Shetland_, tells us
that all the _vissiks_ or ballads have been forgotten since 1750, or
thereby. They were sung to a dance, in which men and women joined hands
and formed a ring, moving forwards, and keeping time with their hands
and feet. Mr. Newell (_Games_, p. 78), records that "Barbara Allen" was
sung and danced in New England at children's parties at a period when
dancing was forbidden to be taught in schools. "Auld Lang Syne" is a
further instance.
It will easily be seen that the circle games have a distinctive
characteristic compared with the line games. These, as I have already
pointed out, are games of contest, whereas the circle games are games in
which a homogeneous group of persons are performing a ceremony belonging
entirely to themselves. The ceremony is of a religious character, as in
"Oats and Beans and Barley," or "Old Roger," dedicated to a spirit
intimately connected with the group who perform it, and having nothing
belonging to any outside group. The position of the marriage ceremony in
this group is peculiar. It has settled down from the more primitive
state of things shown in the line marriage games, and has acquired a
more social and domestic form. Except in the very significant water
custom in "Sally Water," which I have suggested (ii. pp. 176, 177) may
take us back to perhaps the very oldest stage of culture, all the games
in this group are evidently of a later formation. Let it be noted, too,
that the circle has deep religious significance not entirely absent from
the customs of comparatively later times, among which the singing of
"Auld Lang Syne" is the most generally known.
But in speaking of matters of religious significance, it is important to
bear in mind that we are not dealing with the religion of the Church.
Everywhere it is most significant that marriage ceremony, sacred rite,
social custom, or whatever is contained in these games, do not take us
to the religion of to-day. Non-Christian rites can only be pre-Christian
in origin, and these games therefore take us to pre-Christian religious
or social custom, and this is sufficient to stamp them with an antiquity
which alone would certify to the importance of studying this branch of
folk-lore.
To take now the dialogue or individual form of game, the best example
for my purpose is "Mother, Mother, the Pot boils over" (vol. i. pp.
396-401). Here the chorus has disappeared; the principal characters tell
the story in dialogue, the minor characters only acting when the
dialogue necessitates it, and then in dumb show. This is an interesting
and important game. It is a complete drama of domestic life at a time
when child-stealing and witchcraft were rife. A mother goes out to work,
and returns to find one of her seven children missing. The game
describes the stealing of the children one by one by the witch, but the
little drama tells even more than this. It probably illustrates some of
the practices and customs connected with fire-worship and the worship of
the hearth. There is a pot, which is a magical one, and which boils over
when each one of the children is stolen and the mother's presence is
necessary. A remarkable point is that the witch asks to borrow a light
from the fire. The objection to the giving of fire out of the house is a
well-known and widely-diffused superstition, the possession of a brand
from the house fire giving power to the possessor over the inmates. The
witch in this game takes away a child when the eldest daughter consents
to give her a light. The spitting on the hearth gives confirmation to
the theory that the desecration of the hearth is the cause of the pot
boiling over. Instances of magical pots are not rare.[20]
[20] Mr. W. F. Kirby refers me to the form of initiation into
witchcraft in Saxony, where the candidate danced round a pot
filled with magic herbs, singing--
"I believe in this pot,
And abjure God;"
or else it was--
"I abjure God,
And believe in this pot."
After the children are stolen the mother has evidently a long and
troublesome journey in search of them; obstacles are placed in her path
quite in the manner of the folk-tale. Blood must not be spilled on the
threshold. This game, then, which might be considered only as one of
child-stealing, becomes, when examined on the theories accompanying the
ancient house ritual, an extraordinary instance of the way beliefs and
customs have been dramatised, and so perpetuated. Other games of a
similar character to this, and perhaps derived from it, are "Witch,"
"Gipsy," "Steal the Pigs."
Amongst other games classified as dialogue games are those in which
animals take part. In some there is a contest between a beast of prey,
usually a fox or wolf, and a hen and her chickens or a goose and her
goslings; in others a shepherd or keeper guards sheep from a wolf, and
in these animals of the chase are hunted or baited for sport. In
the animal contest games, "Fox and Goose," "Hen and Chickens,"
"Gled-wylie," "Auld Grannie," "Old Cranny Crow," all played in the
dialogue form, the dialogue announces that the fox wants some food, and
he arouses the suspicion of the goose or hen by prowling around or near
her dwelling. After a parley, in which he tries to deceive the mother
animal, he announces his intention of catching one of the chickens. The
hen declares she will protect her brood, and a contest ensues. These
games have of course arisen from the well-known predatory habits of the
wolf, fox, and kite. On the other hand, the games illustrating the
hunting or baiting of animals, such as "Baste the Bear," "Fox in the
Hole," "Hare and Hounds," are simply imitations of those sports.
"Baiting the Bear," a popular and still played game, has continued since
the days of bear-baiting.
I may also mention the games dealing with ghosts. "Ghost at the Well,"
"Mouse and Cobbler," show the prevailing belief in ghosts. Playing at
Ghosts has been one of the most popular of games. These two show the
game in a very degenerate condition. I need not, I think, describe in
detail any more of the dialogue games. There are none so good as
"Mother, the Pot boils over," but that was hardly to be expected. The
customs which no doubt were originally dramatised in them all have in
many cases been lost, as in the case of some versions of "Mother, the
Pot boils over."