In one of our home counties--Hertfordshire--it is a "mare," and the custom of "crying the mare" has allusion to the corn spirit, and is spoken of in some villages to-day. There are several rhymes that carry a notice of cornfield games. "Ring a ring a rosies, A pocket full of posies. Hush!--The Cry?--Hush!--The Cry? All fall down." * * * * * "Little boy blue come blow me thy horn, The sheep in the meadow, The cow's in the corn. Where is the boy that looks after the sheep? Under the haystack fast asleep." The "Little Boy Blue" rhyme, it has been urged, had only reference to the butcher's boy. The rhyme is very much older than the blue-smocked butcher's boy, and in truth it may be said the butcher boy of a century ago wore white overalls. The former rhyme, "Ring a Ring a Rosies," is known in Italy and Germany. In the northern counties of England the children use the words, "Hushu! Hushu!" in the third line. The Spirit of the Cornfield is dreaded by children of all European countries. In Saxon Transylvania the children gather maize leaves and completely cover one of their playmates with them. This game is intended to prefigure death. "CUCKOOS!" "Cuckoo cherrytree, catch a bird And give it to me."[G] The people of the Oral and Tula Governments, especially the maidens, christen the cuckoo "gossip darlings!" In one of the Lithuanian districts the girls sing-- "Sister, dear, Mottled cuckoo! Thou who feedest The horses of thy brother, Thou who spinnest silken threads, Sing, O cuckoo, Shall I soon be married?" In _Love's Labour's Lost_ a passage occurs where the two seasons, Spring and Winter, vie with each other in extolling the cuckoo and the owl. _Spring._ "When daisies pied, and violets blue, And lady-smocks all silver white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue, Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men, for thus sings he-- Cuckoo! Cuckoo! cuckoo! O word of fear, Unpleasing to the married ear!" Thus is cuckoo gossip perpetuated in rhyme and song; but an old belief in the mysteriously disappearing bird gave an opportunity to children to await its return in the early summer, and then address to it all kinds of ridiculous questions. "How many years have I to live?" is a favourite query. The other like that of the Lithuanian maid, "Shall I soon be married?" meets with favour amongst single girls. A German song, entitled "The Shepherd Maiden," indicates this custom. The words being-- "A shepherd maiden, one fine day, Two lambs to pasture led, To verdant fields where daisies grew, And bloomed the clover red; There spied she in a hedge close by A cuckoo, call with merry cry, Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo!"