The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland Volume I Part 29

Cutters and Trucklers

A remembrance of the old smuggling days. The boys divide into two parties; the Trucklers try to reach some given point before the Cutter catches them.-Cornwall (_Folk-lore Journal_, v. 60).

Dab

Dab a prin in my lottery book; Dab ane, dab twa, dab a' your prins awa'.

A game in which a pin is put at random in a school-book, between the leaves of which little pictures are placed. The successful adventurer is the person who puts the pin between two leaves including a picture which is the prize, and the pin itself is the forfeit (_Blackwood's Magazine_, Aug. 1821, p. 36). This was a general school game in West London in 1860-1866 (G. L. Gomme).

Dab-an-thricker

A game in which the _dab_ (a wooden ball) is caused to spring upwards by a blow on the _thricker_ (trigger), and is struck by a flat, bottle-shaped mallet fixed to the end of a flexible wand, the distance it goes counting so many for the striker.-Ross and Stead's _Holderness Glossary_.

This is the same as "Knur and Spell."

Dab-at-the-hole

A game at marbles (undescribed).-Patterson's _Antrim and Down Glossary_.

Dalies

A child's game, played with small bones or pieces of hard wood. The _dalies_ were properly sheep's trotters.-Halliwell's _Dictionary_.

Evidently the same game as "Fivestones" and "Hucklebones."

Davie-drap

Children amuse themselves on the braesides i' the sun, playing at "Hide and Seek" with this little flower, accompanying always the hiding of it with this rhyme, marking out the circle in which it is hid with the forefinger:-

Athin the bounds o' this I hap, My black and bonny davie-drap; Wha is here the cunning yin My davie-drap to me will fin.

-Mactaggart's _Gallovidian Encyclopaedia_.

The davie-drap is a little black-topped field-flower.

Deadily

A school game, not described.-Mactaggart's _Gallovidian Encyclopaedia_.

Diamond Ring

My lady's lost her diamond ring; I pitch upon you to find it!

Children sit in a ring or in a line, with their hands placed together palm to palm, and held straight, the little finger down-most between the knees. One of them is then chosen to represent a servant, who takes a ring, or some other small article as a subst.i.tute, between her two palms, which are pressed flat together like those of the rest, and goes round the circle or line placing her hands into the hands of every player, so that she is enabled to let the ring fall wherever she pleases without detection. After this she returns to the first child she touched, and with her hands behind her says the above words. The child who is thus addressed must guess who has the ring, and the servant performs the same ceremony with each of the party. They who guess right escape, but the rest forfeit. Should any one in the ring exclaim "I have it!" she also forfeits; nor must the servant make known who has the ring until all have guessed under the same penalty. The forfeits are afterwards cried as usual.-Halliwell's _Nursery Rhymes_, p. 223.

(_b_) This game was a general favourite at juvenile parties years ago.

The hands were held in the posture described by Halliwell, but any child was pitched upon for the first finder, and afterwards the child in whose hands the ring was found had to be finder. There was no guessing; the closed hands were looked into (A. B. Gomme). Mr. Addy has collected a similar game called "My lady's lost a gold ring," and Mr. Newell (_Games and Songs of American Children_, p. 150) has another, "Hold fast my gold ring."

Dibbs

A game played with the small knuckle-bones taken from legs of mutton; these bones are themselves called "dibs" (Lowsley's _Glossary of Berkshire Words_). Holloway's _Dictionary_ says five of these bones are used by boys, with which they play a game called "Dibs" in West Suss.e.x.

See "Check-stones," "Fivestones," "Hucklebones."

Dinah

[Music]

No one in the house but Dinah, Dinah, No one in the house I know, I know; No one in the house but Dinah, Dinah, Playing on the old banjo.

A ring is formed, and a girl stands blindfolded inside. As the verse is sung and finished, Dinah goes to any one in the ring, and, if successful in guessing her name, takes her place, the other taking the place of Dinah, the game going on as before.-Earls Heaton (Herbert Hardy).

"Dinah" was a Christy Minstrel song in the "fifties." It is probable that the game, which resembles "Buff," has been played to the tune of the song. Singing a chorus would soon follow.

See "Buff," "m.u.f.fin Man."

Dip o' the Kit

A rustic game, undescribed and marked as obsolescent.-Peac.o.c.k's _Manley and Corringham Glossary_.

Dish-a-loof

A singular rustic amus.e.m.e.nt. One lays his hand down on a table, another clashes his upon it, a third his on that, and so on (fig. 1). When all the players have done this, the one who has his hand on the board pulls it out and lays it on the one uppermost (fig. 2): they all follow in rotation, and so a continual clashing and dashing is kept up; hence the name "Dish." Those who win the game are those who stand out longest-viz., those who are best at enduring pain. Tender hands could not stand it a moment: one dash of a rustic "loof" would make the blood spurt from the tip of every finger. It is a piece of pastime to country lads of the same nature as "Hard Knuckles" (Mactaggart's _Gallovidian Encyclopaedia_). This is a well-known game for small children in London.

After each child's hands have been withdrawn and replaced on top as many times as possible without deranging the order, a general scramble and knocking of hands together ends the game (A. B. Gomme). Jamieson (_Etymological Dict._) gives this as a sport of children.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 1. Fig. 2.]

See "Dump," "Green Gra.s.s," "Hot c.o.c.kles."

Doddart

A game played in a large level field with a bent stick called "doddart."

Two parties, headed by two captains, endeavour to drive a wooden ball to their respective boundaries (Halliwell's _Dictionary_). Brockett (_North Country Words_) adds to this that the captains are ent.i.tled to choose their followers by alternate votes. A piece of globular wood called an "orr" or "coit" is thrown down in the middle of the field and driven to one of two opposite hedges-the alley, hail-goal, or boundary. The same game as "Clubby," "Hockey," "Shinney," "Shinneyhaw."

Doncaster Cherries