The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland Volume Ii Part 111

WITH FINGERS AND STRING.

Cat's-Cradle.

This leaves over a few games which do not come under either of these chief heads, and appear now to be only forms of pure amus.e.m.e.nt. These are:-

Blow-point.

Bob Cherry.

b.u.mmers.

Chinny-mumps.

Cuddy among the Powks.

Dish-a-loof.

Dust Point.

Handy Dandy.

Level Coil.

Lug and a Bite.

Lugs.

Magician.

Malaga Raisins.

Musical Chairs.

Neighbour, I torment thee.

Obadiah.

Penny Hop.

Pigeon Walk.

Pinny Show.

Pins.

Pirly Peaseweep.

Pon Cake.

Poor and Rich.

p.r.i.c.k at the Loop.

Robbing the Parson's Hen Roost.

Scat.

She Said, and She Said.

Stagging.

Sticky-stack.

Stroke Bias.

Sweer Tree.

Thing Done.

Troco.

Troule-in-Madame.

Truncher.

Turn Spit Jack.

Wiggle Waggle.

Wild Boar.

In order to show the importance of this cla.s.sification, let me first refer to the games of skill. These are (1) where one individual plays with some articles belonging to himself against several other players who play with corresponding articles belonging to them; (2) where one player attempts to gain articles deposited beforehand by all the players as stakes or objects to be played for. These games are played with b.u.t.tons, marbles, cherry-stones, nuts, pins, and pence. In the second group, each player stakes one or more of these articles before beginning play, which stakes become the property of the winner of the game. The object of some of the games in the first group is the destruction of the article with which the opponent plays. This is the case with the games of "conkers" played with nuts on a string, and peg-top; the nuts and top are broken, if possible, by the players, to prevent their being used again, the peg of the top being retained by the winner as a trophy. The successful nut or top has the merit and glory of having destroyed previously successful nuts or tops. The victories of the one destroyed are tacked on and appropriated by each victor in succession. So we see a nut or a top which has destroyed another having a record of, say, twenty-five victories, taking these twenty-five victories of its opponent and adding them to its own score. In like manner the pegs of the tops slain in peg-top are preserved and shown as trophies. That the destruction of the implements of the game, although not adding to the immediate wealth of the winner, does materially increase his importance, is manifest, especially in the days when these articles were comparatively much more expensive than now, or when it meant, as at one time it must have done, the making of another implement.

These games are of interest to the folk-lorist, as showing connection with early custom. We know that playing at games for stakes involving life or death to the winner, or the possession of the loser's magical or valuable property or knowledge, is not only found in another branch of folk-lore, namely, folk-tales, but there is plenty of evidence of the early belief that the possession of a weapon which had, in the hands of a skilful chief, done great execution, would give additional skill and power to the person who succeeded in obtaining it. When I hear of a successful "conker" or top being preserved and handed down from father to son,[19] and exhibited with tales of its former victories, I believe we have survivals of the form of transmission of virtues from one person to another through the means of an acquired object. I do not think that the c.u.mulative reckoning and its accompanying ideas would occur to modern boys, unless they had inherited the conception of the virtue of a conquered enemy's weapon being transferred to the conqueror's.

[19] I know of one nut which was preserved and shown to admiring boys as a conqueror of 1000.

Other games of skill are those played by two or more players on diagrams or plans. Many of these diagrams and plans are found scratched or carved on the stone flooring or walls of old churches, cathedrals, and monastic buildings, showing that the boys and men of the Middle Ages played them as a regular amus.e.m.e.nt-probably monks were not averse to this kind of diversion in the intervals of religious exercise; plans were also made on the ground, and the games played regularly by shepherds and other people of outdoor occupation. We know this was so with the well-known "Nine Men's Morris" in Shakespeare's time, and there is no reason why this should not be the case with others, although "Nine Men's Morris"

appears to have been the favourite. These diagram games are primitive in idea, and simple in form. They consist primarily of two players trying to form a row of three stones in three consecutive places on the plan; the one who first accomplishes this, wins. This is the case with "Kit-Cat-Cannio" (better known as "Noughts and Crosses") "Corsicrown"

and "Nine Men's Morris."

Now, in "Noughts and Crosses" the simplest form of making a "row of three," where only two players play, and in another diagram game called "t.i.t-Tat-Toe," it is possible for neither player to win, and in this case the result is marked or scored to an unknown or invisible third player, who is called "Old Nick," "Old Tom," or "Old Harry." In some versions this third player is allowed to keep all the marks he registers, and to win the game if possible; in others, the next successful player takes "Old Nick's" score and adds it to his own. Here we have an element which needs explanation, and it is interesting to remind oneself of the primitive custom of a.s.signing a certain proportion of the crops or pieces of land to the devil, or other earth spirit, which a.s.signment was made by lot. It seems to me that a game in which an invisible player takes part must come from an era in which unknown spirits were believed to take part in people's lives, the interpretation of such part being obtained by means of divination.

Again, in the games played with ball (hand) are remains of divination, and the ball games played by two opposite parties with bats and sticks, the origin of our modern cricket and football, have been developed from those early contests which have played such an important part in parish and town politics. Even in the simple game of "Touch" or "Tig" a primitive element can be found. In this game, as in many others, it is one of the fundamental rules, now unfortunately being disregarded, that the player who is "he" or "it" must be chosen by lot; one of the "counting out" rhymes is said until all the players but one are counted out-this one is then "he." This "he" is apparently a "tabooed" person; he remains "he" until he succeeds in touching another, who becomes "tabooed" in turn, and the first is then restored to his own personality. There would be no necessity for this deciding by lot unless something of an ignominious or "evil" character had been originally a.s.sociated with the "unnamed" or "tabooed" player. In some games the player who is counted out is the victim of the rough play or punishment, which is the motive of the game. It is possible that the game of "Touch"

has developed from the practice of choosing a victim by lot, or from tabooing people suffering from certain diseases or subjected to some special punishment.

The "counting out" rhymes of children are in themselves an interesting and curious study. They contain the remains in distorted form of some of the early numerals. The fact of a counting-out rhyme being used in the games is of itself evidence of antiquity and old usage. For those interested in this branch of study I can refer to the valuable book on this subject by Mr. H. Carrington Bolton, which contains hundreds of these rhymes collected from various sources.

I mention these instances of possible connection between the games of skill and ancient belief and custom, to show that the anthropological significance of traditional games is not absent from what might perhaps be considered quite modern games. This is important to my argument, because when I turn to the dramatic section of children's games there is so much evidence of the survival of ancient custom and belief, that I am supported in the arguments which I shall advance by the fact that the whole province of children's play, and not particular departments, contribute to this evidence. It will be seen from the cla.s.sification that many customs are dramatised or represented in a more or less imperfect form in a large number of games, and that these customs have been those which obtained a firm hold on the people, and formed an integral part of their daily life. Courtship, love, and marriage form the largest number; then the contest games for the taking of prisoners and of territory are the next in point of numbers. Funerals appear as the next most widely spread, then harvest customs, while the practice of divination, the belief in ghosts and charms, well-worship, tree-worship, and rush-bearing, witches, and child-stealing, are fully represented.

Next come imitations of sports (animal), and contest games between animals, and then a number of games in which "guessing" is a princ.i.p.al feature, and a large number dealing with penalties or punishments inflicted for breach of rules.

A survey of the cla.s.sification scheme of traditional games introduces the important fact that games contain customs; in other words, that games of skill and chance have come down from a time when practices were in vogue which had nothing originally to do with games, and that dramatic games have come down from times when the action they dramatise was the contemporary action of the people. It becomes important, therefore, to work more closely into the details of these games, to ascertain if we can what customs are preserved, to what people or period of culture they might have belonged. In many instances enough is said under each game to show the significance of the conclusions, but when brought together and compared one with another these conclusions become more significant. The fact that marriage custom is preserved in a given form becomes of immense value when it is found to have been preserved in many games. I shall not go further into the games of skill and chance, but confine myself to the important cla.s.s of dramatic games.

By the dramatic game I mean a play or amus.e.m.e.nt which consists of words sung or said by the players, accompanied by certain pantomimic actions which accord with the words used, or, as I prefer to put it, of certain definite and settled actions performed by the players to indicate certain meanings, of which the words are only a further ill.u.s.tration.

To take the method of play first, I have found five distinct and different methods:-

(1) The line form of game, played by the children being divided into two sides of about an equal number on each side, with a s.p.a.ce of ground of about eight or ten feet between the two lines. Each line joins hands, and advances and retires in turn while singing or saying their parts.

(2) The circle form, played by the children joining hands and forming a circle, and all walking or dancing round together when singing the words.

(3) The individual form, where the children take separate characters and act a little play.

(4) The arch form, in which two children clasp each other's hands, hold their arms high, and so form a kind of arch, beneath which all the other players run in single file.

(5) Winding-up form, in which the players, clasping hands, wind round another player until all are wedged closely together, and then unwind again, generally a.s.suming a serpentine form in so doing.

It will be well, in the first place, to arrange the games played under each of these methods:-

GAMES PLAYED IN LINE FORM (_with singing and action_).

Babbity Bowster.

Green Gra.s.s.

Hark the Robbers (_one form_).

Here comes a l.u.s.ty Wooer.

Here comes one Virgin on her Knee.

Jenny Jones (_one form_).

Jolly Hooper (_only one line advance_).

Lady of the Land.

London Bridge (_one form_).

Mary Brown (_one form_).

Milking Pails.

Nuts in May.

Pray, pretty Miss (_one form_).

Queen Anne.