The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland (Vol 1 of 2): With Tunes, Singing-Rhymes and Methods of Playing etc.Gomme, Alice Bertha
History
The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland (Vol 1 of 2): With Tunes, Singing-Rhymes and Methods of Playing etc.
Gomme, Alice Bertha
Folklore -- Great Britain; Games -- Great Britain
Addy (_Sheffield Glossary_) says:—“Two children advance and retire on
one side. When the opposite side says ‘Yes!’ the two take the first
child in the row and dance round with her, singing the remaining verse.
This is called ‘the wedding.’”
The Lanarkshire version is quite a different one, and contains rather
remarkable features. Mr. Black says that the game was played entirely by
girls, never by boys, and generally in the months of May or June, about
forty years ago. The children sang with rather mincing and refined
voices, evidently making an effort in this direction. They walked, with
their hands clasped behind their backs, up and down the road. Each
child was crowned with rushes, and also had sashes or girdles of rushes.
Mr. Ballantyne says in his boyhood it was played by a row of boys on one
side and another of girls opposite. The boys selected a girl when
singing the third verse.
In the Roxton version, one child at the end of the line of children acts
as “mother.” One child advances as “suitor,” and says the three first
verses. The “mother” replies with the next line. The “suitor” chooses a
girl and says the next verse, and then all the children sing the last
verse. This is the same action as in Halliwell’s version.
(_d_) The analysis of the game-rhymes is on pp. 164-67. This analysis
presents us with a very good example of the changes caused by the
game-rhymes being handed down by tradition among people who have
forgotten the original meaning of the game. The first line in the Scotch
version contains the word “dis,” which is not known to the ordinary
vocabulary. Another word, of similar import, is “dik-ma-day” in the
Lanarkshire version. Two other words occur, namely, “thegan” in the
Lanarkshire, and “maycanameecan” in the Sussex versions, which are also
not to be found in ordinary vocabularies. The two last words appear only
once, and cannot, therefore, be used for the purpose of tracing out an
original form of the game-rhyme, because on the system of analysis
adopted they may be arbitrary introductions and totally unconnected with
the original rhymes. This, however, is not the case with the two
first-mentioned words, and I am inclined to consider them as forming
part of the earliest version. The word “dis” is carried through no less
than ten out of the fourteen variants, the gradation in the forms being
as follows:—
dis
dass
dish
diss[y]—duss
dossy
this—thus
—dust
—dust[y]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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