In the ancient North, too, children played with figures of animals. The six-year-old Arngrim is described in a saga as generously making a present of his little brass horse to his younger brother Steinolf; it was more suitable to the latter's age, he thought. The weapons of boys still preserve the memory of those used by primitive man. The bow and arrow, the sling, the air-gun, the yet more primeval club or stone, are skilfully handled by them. Their use of the top and ball has varied but little from the Christian era to the present day. It is, therefore, not surprising that many games are nearly the same as when Pollux described them in the second century.[28] Yet it interests us to discover that not only the sports themselves, but also the words of the formulas by which they are conducted, are in certain cases older than the days of Plato and Xenophon.[29] We have already set forth the history contained in certain appellations of the song and dance. If the very name of the _chorus_ has survived in Europe to the present day, so the character of the classic round is perpetuated in the ring games of modern children. Only in a single instance, but that a most curious one, have the words of a Greek children's round been preserved. This is the "tortoise-game," given by Pollux, and we will let his words speak for themselves: "The _tortoise_ is a girl's game, like the _pot_; one sits, and is called _tortoise_. The rest go about asking: "O torti-tortoise, in the ring what doest thou?" She answers: "I twine the wool, and spin the fine Milesian thread." The first again: "Tell us, how was it that thy offspring died?" To which she says: "He plunged in ocean from the backs of horses white." Our author does not tell us how the game ended; but from his comparison to the "pot-game"[30] we conclude that the tortoise immediately dives into the "ocean" (the ring) to catch whom she can. This quaint description shows us that the game-formulas of ancient times were to the full as incoherent and obscure as those of our day frequently are. The alliterative name of the tortoise,[31] too, reminding us of the repetitions of modern nursery tales, speaks volumes for the character of Greek childish song. Kissing games, also, were as familiar in the classic period as in later time; for Pollux quotes the Athenian comic poet Crates as saying of a coquette that she "plays kissing games in rings of boys, preferring the handsome ones." It must be confessed, however, that we can offer nothing so graceful as the cry with which Greek girls challenged each other to the race, an exclamation which we may render, "Now, fairies!"[32]--the maidens assuming for the nonce the character of the light-footed nymphs of forest or stream.