(_d_) The analysis of the game-rhymes is on pp. 178-181. The most constant formulæ of this game-rhyme are shown by this analysis to be Nos. 1, 6, 7, 13, 15, 18, 23, and the variants, though important, are not sufficient to detract from the significance of the normal version. It is evidently a funeral game. The green gravel and the green grass indicate the locality of the scene; “green,” as applied to gravel, may mean freshly disturbed, just as green grave means a freshly made grave. The tenant of the new grave is the well-loved lady of a disconsolate lover, and probably the incidents of washing and dressing the corpse, and putting an inscription on the place where it is laid, are indicated by Nos. 13 and 15. The dirge, or singing to the dead, is indicated by Nos. 18, 23, and 26, and the beauty of the first line is in complete accord with the mournful music. That No. 26 occurs in only two variants, Derbyshire and the Isle of Man, is curious, as the pathos of this appeal is very apparent in the movement of the game. The communion with the dead which is indicated by No. 23 is by no means considered impossible by the peasantry. In confirmation of this being a representation of an old funeral ceremony, it may be pointed out that the action of turning backwards during the singing of the dirge is also represented in the curious funeral ceremony called “Dish-a-loof,” which is described in Henderson’s _Folk-lore of the Northern Counties_, p. 53. Henderson’s words are: “All the attendants, going out of the room, return into it backwards, repeating this rhyme of ‘saining.’” The additional ceremony of marriage in four of the games is clearly an interpolation, which may have arisen from the custom of playing love and marriage games at funerals and during the watching with the corpse, or may be a mere transition to the more pleasant task of love-making as the basis of a game. The Derbyshire incident (No. 24) may indicate indeed that the funeral is that of a young bride, and in that case the tendency to make the game wholly a marriage game is accounted for. The decay which has set in is apparent by the evident attempt to alter from “green gravel” to “green grover” and “yellow gravel” (Nos. 4 and 5), and to introduce pen and black ink (No. 17). The addition of the incongruous elements from other games (Nos. 27-31) is a frequent occurrence in modern games, and is the natural result of decadence in the original form of the game. Altogether this game-rhyme affords a very good example of the condition of traditional games among the present generation of children.