Alice Bertha Gomme

“ The game is, therefore, not merely the acting of a funeral, but more particularly shows the belief that a dead person is cognisant of actions done by the living, and capable of resenting personal wrongs and desecration of the grave. It shows clearly the sacredness of the grave; but what, perhaps to us, is the most interesting feature, is the way in which the game is played. This clearly shows a survival of the method of portraying old plays. The ring of children act the part of “chorus,” and relate the incidents of the play. ”

“ The Mother at this loses patience, and pushes her way in, the Witch trying in vain to keep her out. She, with all her children, then chase the Witch until they catch her; when they pretend to bind her hand and foot, put her on a pile, and burn her, the children fanning the imaginary flames with their pinafores. ”

“ Easter fires, May Day fires, Midsummer fires, with their numerous ceremonies, carry us back to heathen sacrifices, especially such customs as rubbing the sacred flame, running through glowing embers, throwing flowers into the fire, baking and distributing loaves or cakes, and the circular dance. ”

“ The raising and lowering of the arms on the part of the child who plays “apple tree,” the quiet of “Old Roger” until he has to jump up, certainly show the early method of actors when details were presented by action instead of words. Children see no absurdity in being a “tree,” or a “wall,” “apple,” or animal. They simply are these things if the game demands it, and they think nothing of incongruities. ”

“ Here is the undoubted performance of what must have been an old custom, performed at one time by all the people of the town, being continued as an amusement of children. It was played at Evesham only on Easter Monday, and in three other places only on Shrove Tuesday, and another correspondent says played only on a special day. In other places where it is played the game is not connected with a special day or season. The circle dance does not always occur, and in some cases the children merely run under each other’s clasped hands while singing the words. ”

“ Newell suggests that children having forgotten the original happy finish, and not understanding the “haggling” over the suitors, turned the kings into bandits. Children think it such a natural thing to wish to marry kings, princes, and princesses, and are so sincere in thinking it a matter of course to refuse a sailor or soldier for a king, when it is only a question of marriage, and not of choosing the one you like the best, that this reason does not to me seem to apply to a game of this kind. ”

“ If he is hit he is out of the game. He can stay at any stage in the boundary as soon as the ball is in hand, getting home again when the next player of his own side has in turn hit the ball away. When a ball is returned the feeder can bounce it within the base, and the player cannot then run to any new stage of the boundary until after the ball has again been hit away by another player. If a player misses a ball when endeavouring to strike at it he has two more chances, but at the third failure he is bound to run to the first boundary stick and take his chance of being hit with the ball. ”

“ The richer women walk along, followed by their attendants carrying trays filled with such pots; the poorer people carry their own plants. As soon as each procession arrives at the ghat, or flight of steps leading down to the lake, every family-circle of friends deposit their pots on the ground and dance round them. After a time the dancers descend to the water’s edge, taking their pots of earth and corn with them. They then wash away the soil from the plants, and distribute these amongst their friends. The whole of the ceremony is observed by the men, but they take no part in it. ”

“ Poor mothers with sickly children in their arms jump side by side with young well-to-do girls; old men, broken with toil, jump in step with vigorous fellows in the heyday of youth. Water and wine are freely offered by the townsfolk to the pilgrims, many of whom sink exhausted under the unwonted effort. ”

“ A person who, by a guess, discovers a special person out of a number, or the exact number of articles concealed in a hand or under a foot, has something of the supernatural or witch-element about him. This is largely the foundation of the belief in witchcraft and the sorcerer. It is not surprising to find, therefore, the guessing-element largely extant in the dramatic game. The “guesser” is usually chosen by lot by means of the counting-out rhyme; the leader then proceeds to confuse the guesser’s or witch’s mind by re-naming secretly the rest of the players. ”

“ At low levels in civilisation it is clear [527] that dancing and play-acting are one. The scenes of hunting and war furnish barbarians with subjects for dances, as when the Gold Coast negroes have gone out to war and their wives at home dance a fetish dance in imitation of battle to give their absent husbands strength and courage. . . . Historians trace from the sacred dances of ancient Greece the dramatic art of the civilised world. Thus from the festivals of the Dionysia arose tragedy and comedy. In the classic ages the players’ art divided into several branches. ”

“ When the dramatic representation of a contest became formulated in a definite game, the individual running out and capturing a certain player on the opposite side would soon develop and become a rule of the game, instead of all on one side trying to knock down all on the other side. It may be a point to remember, too, that in primitive warfare the object is to knock down and kill as many of the enemy as possible, rather than the capture of prisoners. ”

“ In times of joy and mirth, sorrow and loss, victory or defeat, weddings and funerals, plagues and pestilences, famine and plenty, civilised and savage alike dance, act, and sing their griefs and their joys. The gods of all nations have been worshipped by pantomimic dance and song, their altars and temples are encircled by their worshippers; and as the occasion was one of fear or joy, and the god entreated or terrified by his followers, so would the actions and voices of the dancers be in accord. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If there is a popular belief of this kind, it is strangely borne out by this game-rhyme. “First a girl, and then a boy,” may also be shown to be a result to be desired and prayed for, in the popular belief that a man’s cycle of life is not complete until he is the father of a daughter, who, in her turn, shall have a son. ”

“ The custom of encircling a church on its festival day existed until lately in several parishes in England, and this could only be a descendant of the custom once held sacred by all the followers of one belief, demonstrating by their action in group form the fact that they all believed in the same thing and held together, by the clasp of hands and the dance round, their determination to hold to and keep to it. ”

“ In this game, then, I think we have a distinct survival of or remembrance of the tribal marriage—marriage at a period when it was the custom for the men of a clan or village to seek wives from the girls of another clan—both belonging to one tribe. The game is a marriage game of the most matter-of-fact kind. Young men arrive from a place at some distance for the purpose of seeking wives. The maidens are apparently ready and expecting their arrival. They are as willing to become wives as the men are to become husbands. ”

“ In the case of the line games hands are clasped by all players on each side, who are thus in alliance against those on the opposite side. When hands are joined all round so that a circle is formed, all are concerned in the performance of the same ceremony. There is no division into parties, neither is difference of opinion shown either by action or words in circle games.
In the third class of game there are several distinct characters, and the game partakes more of the nature of what we should call a play proper, and may be considered an outcome of the circle play. ”

“ Halliwell records in his nursery rhymes what is perhaps the oldest printed version of the rhyme. He says the children form a long string, hand in hand; one stands in front as leader, two hold up their clasped hands to form an arch, and the children pass under; the last is taken prisoner. Though this way of playing does not appear to be used now—no version, at least, has reached me—it is clear that the game might be played in this way, probably as a commencement of the ceremonial, and then the other positions might follow. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Children, when acting these games or dramas, appear not to need the element of dress or of particular garments to indicate their adoption of certain characters or characteristics. To display your heels and look down at them while doing so signifies a man who wears spurs, a knight; to prance along as if a horse, shows a man on horseback, a duke a-riding. A child lies or stoops down and shuts her eyes, she is dead; if she is passively carried by two others a little distance, she is going to be buried. The child, by standing still, becomes a tree, a house, or a stone wall. ”

“ Thus, besides verbal alterations, the lines relating to farming have dropped out of the Wakefield version. It is abundantly clear from the more perfect game-rhymes that the waiting for a partner is an episode in the harvest customs, as if, when the outdoor business of the season was finished, the domestic element becomes the next important transaction in the year’s proceedings. The curious four-lined formula applicable to the duties of married life may indeed be a relic of those rhythmical formulæ which are found throughout all early legal ceremonies. ”

“ But with our civilised notions it is not so easy to understand that barbarians’ dancing may mean still more than this; it seems to them so real, that they expect it to act on the world outside. Such an example as the buffalo dance (given ante, p. 518) shows how, in the lower level of culture, men dance to express their feeling and wishes. All this explains how in ancient religion dancing came to be one of the chief acts of worship. Religious processions went with song and dance to the Egyptian temples, and Plato said all dancing ought to be thus an act of religion. ”

“ 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, [494] 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. ”

“ A custom is very low down among the strata of survivals when it is only to be recognised as part of a children’s singing game, and the proposition it suggests is that children have preserved more of the old custom than was preserved by the people who adopted a portion of it into their marriage ceremony. ”

“ It can live as a simple game in an almost complete state long after its original wording has been lost or forgotten, and as long as occupations continue and events occur which lend themselves to dumb action. The origin of the game I consider to be those dances and songs performed in imitation of the serious avocations of life, when such ceremonies were considered necessary to their proper performance, and acceptable to the deities presiding over such functions, arising from belief in sympathetic magic. ”

“ We are all ladies, we must all die!
Excepting ——, who is the prettiest child.
Fie, for shame, fie, for shame, turn your back to the wall again.
—Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire (Miss Winfield)
[334]
XII.
Wall-flowers, wall-flowers, growing up so high!
We’re all ladies, and we shall all die!
Excepting [naming smallest child in ring] ,
She can hop, and she can skip, and she can play the organ!
Oh! for shame, fie, for shame,
Turn your back upon our game.
—Enbourne School, Berks. (Miss M. Kimber) .
XIII.
Wall-flowers, wall-flowers, growing up so high! ”

“ 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. ”

“ We all tumble down.
—Manton, Marlborough, Wilts. (H. S. May) .
XVI.
Poor Mary is a-weeping, a-weeping, a-weeping,
On a fine summer’s day;
What is she weeping for, weeping for, weeping for?
She is weeping for her lover, her lover, her lover;
And who is her love, who is her lover?
Johnny Baxter is her lover, Johnny Baxter is her lover;
And where is her lover, where is her lover?
Her lover is a-sleeping, her lover is a-sleeping,
Is a-sleeping at the bottom of the sea.
—South Devon (Notes and Queries, 8th Series, i. 249, Miss R. H. Busk) .
XVII.
Poor Mary, what are you weeping for? ”