King William was King George’s son, From the Bay of Biscay O! Upon his breast he wore a star— Find your way to English schools. Down on the carpet you must kneel; As the grass grows in the field, Salute your bride and kiss her sweet, And rise again upon your feet. Then followed the game-rhyme, repeated with each stanza— Go choose you east, go choose you west, apparently the same as last four lines of Sheffield version. King William is then supposed to enter— The first girl that I loved so dear, Can it be she’s gone from me? If she’s not here when the night comes on, Will none of you tell me where she’s gone? He then recognises the disguised girl— There’s heart beneath the willow tree, There’s no one here but my love and me. “He had gone to the war, and promised to marry her when he came back. She wrapped a shawl about her head to see if he would recognise her.” This was all the reciter could recollect; the lines of the ballad were sung by an old woman, the ring answering with the game-rhyme. This version seems to indicate clearly that in this game we have preserved one of the ceremonies of a now obsolete marriage-custom—namely, the disguising of the bride and placing her among her bridesmaids and other young girls, all having veils or other coverings alike over their heads and bodies. The bridegroom has to select from among these maidens the girl whom he wished to marry, or whom he had already married, for until this was done he was not allowed to depart with his bride. This custom was continued in sport as one of the ceremonies to be gone through after the marriage was over, long after the custom itself was discontinued. For an instance of this see a “Rural Marriage in Lorraine,” in _Folk-lore Record_, iii. 267-268. This ordeal occurs in more than one folk-tale, and it usually accompanies the incident of a youth having travelled for adventures, sometimes in quest of a bride. He succeeds in finding the whereabouts of the coveted girl, but before he is allowed by the father to take his bride away he is required to perform tasks, a final one being the choosing of the girl with whom he is in love from among others, all dressed alike and disguised. Our bridal veil may probably originate in this custom. In the ballad from which Mr. Newell thinks the game may have originated, a maid has been given in marriage to another than her chosen lover. He rides to the ceremony with a troop of followers; the bride, seeing him approach, calls on her maidens to “take off her gold crown and coif her in linen white,” to test her bridegroom’s affection. This incident, I think, is not to test “affection,” but the ordeal of recognising his bride, however disguised, and the fact that “the hero at once recognises his love, mounts with her on horseback, and flees to Norway,” may be considered to support my view. See also Brand, vol. ii. p. 141, under “Care Cloth.” King’s Chair