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
(_c_) The tunes of all versions are very similar. The tune of the
Newbury game (Miss Kimber) is the same as the _first_ part of the
Ogbourne tune printed (Mr. H. S. May); that from Nottingham (Miss
Youngman) is the same as the first part of the London version. This is
also the case with the Hanbury, Staffs. (Miss E. Hollis) and Fernham and
Longcot game. What difference there is is very slight. The Platt, Kent,
game (Miss Burne), is sung to the same tune as “Green Gravel,” given
_ante_, p. 170. The _first_ portion only of the tune is repeated for all
verses sung after the first verse. The Barnes game is sung to the same
tune as the Earls Heaton (Mr. Hardy), which is printed _ante_. A version
played at Barnes is almost identical with the Southampton version, and
another collected by Miss Thoyts in Berkshire (_Antiquary_, vol. xxvii.
p. 193) is similar to the Hanbury version. The first lines run—Choose
your lover; Open the gates; Go to church, love; Kneel down, love; Say
your prayers, love; Put on the ring; Stand up, love; In the ring, love;
Kiss together, love.
(_d_) The words of all the versions are sufficiently similar to analyse
without a special form. The game appears to be purely a love and
marriage game, and has probably had its origin in a ballad, and this
idea is strengthened by the fact that only one version (London) has the
marriage formula sung at the end, and this is probably an arbitrary
addition. The lover is represented as lonely and disconsolate, and the
remedy suggested is to choose a sweetheart. The marriage ceremony is of
the simplest description—the clasping of hands and the kissing within
the circle probably implying the betrothal at a spot sacred to such
functions, similar to the Standing Stones of Stenness. Whatever may have
been the original intention of these stones, they came in more recent
times to be the resort of lovers, who joined their right hands through
the hole in the altar stones in the belief that this ceremony would add
additional solemnity to the betrothal. Miss Gordon Cumming, in her _Tour
in the Hebrides_, mentions the fact of the marriage ceremony being of
the simplest—a man and woman standing facing each other and clasping
hands over a particular stone. Walking arm-in-arm is a sign in
Dorsetshire that a couple are married. The mention of the “roast beef
and plum pudding” for dinner has probably had its origin in the wedding
dinner or breakfast, and the inviting of friends to assemble for the
wedding dinner. The word “Isabella” may have been originally something
quite different from the name of a girl. I am inclined to think the word
was not the name of a person at all; possibly it was something addressed
to a particular person in words the sense of which are now lost, and the
nearest idea to it was this name. The same thing may also apply to the
word “farewell,” and hence the incongruity of the first few lines in
nearly all versions.
Jack’s Alive.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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