Again, in one version of the foreign game the children that are won over are given the names of dogs, and when their former owner attempts to get them back, they rush at her and bark (No. 1). This corresponds to our game of _Little Dog_, in which the child that stands apart is addressed as "Little Dog I call you." Grimm declared himself at a loss to account for the fact that a dog was associated with the Norns or Fate-maidens who assisted at childbirth (Gr., p. 339); Mannhardt cites the belief that the spirits of the dead were sometimes spoken of as dogs (M., p. 301); and in England there also exists a superstition that the winds that rush past at night are dogs, the so-called Gabriel hounds or ratchets (cf. below, p. 165). Features preserved in other games contain similar suggestions which are worth noting. Thus in the game known as _Drop-handkerchief_ one girl holding a kerchief goes round the others who are arranged in a circle, saying:-- I have a little dog and it won't bite you It won't bite you, it won't bite you [_ad lib._] It _will_ bite you. (1894, I, 109.) The person on whom _the little dog_ is bestowed is "bitten"; that is, she is in the same predicament as the German woman who is bitten by the stork, and the limping woman of the German Babyland game. In playing _Drop-handkerchief_ in Deptford the children sing:-- I had a little dog whose name was Buff, I sent him up the street for a pennyworth of snuff. He broke my box and spilt my snuff I think my story is long enough-- 'Taint you, 'taint you, and 'taint you, but 'tis you. (1894, I, p. 111.) In the collection of Nursery Songs by Rusher stands the following rhyme:-- I had a little dog and they called him Buff, I sent him to a shop to buy me snuff, But he lost the bag and spilt the stuff; I sent him no more but gave him a cuff, For coming from the mart without any snuff. "Bufe" as a word for a dog occurs as far back as 1567.[42] [42] Murray's Dictionary: _Bufe_. CHAPTER IX CUSTOM RHYMES