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
(_b_) One set of children stand against a wall, another set stand
opposite, facing them. The first set sing the first line, the others
replying with the second line, and so with the third and fourth lines.
The two sides then rush over to each other, and the second set are
caught. The child who is caught last becomes one of the first set for
another game. This is the Earls Heaton version. The Lancashire game, as
described by Miss Dendy, is: One child stands opposite a row of
children, and the row run over to the opposite side, when the one child
tries to catch them. The prisoners made, join the one child, and assist
her in the process of catching the others. The rhyme is repeated in each
case until all are caught, the last one out becoming “Blackthorn” for a
new game. Harland and Wilkinson describe the game somewhat differently.
Each player has a mark, and after the dialogue the players run over to
each other’s marks, and if any can be caught before getting home to the
opposite mark, he has to carry his captor to the mark, when he takes his
place as an additional catcher.
(_c_) Miss Burne’s version (_Shropshire Folk-lore_, p. 521) is
practically the same as the Earls Heaton game, and Easther in his
_Almondbury Glossary_ gives a version practically like the Sheffield.
Mr. Hardy says it is sometimes called “Black-butt,” when the opposite
side cry “Away we cut.” Miss Dendy quotes an old Lancashire rhyme, which
curiously refers to the different subjects in the Lancashire game rhyme.
It is as follows:—
Little boy, little boy, where were you born?
Way up in Lancashire, under a thorn,
Where they sup butter-milk in a ram’s horn.
Another version is given in _Notes and Queries_, 3rd Series, vii. 285.
(_d_) This is a dramatic game, in which the children seem to personate
animals, and to depict events belonging to the history of the flock.
Miss Burne groups it under her “dramatic games.”
Blind Bell
A game formerly common in Berwickshire, in which all the players were
hoodwinked except the person who was called the Bell. He carried a bell,
which he rung, still endeavouring to keep out of the way of his
hoodwinked partners in the game. When he was taken, the person who
seized him was released from the bandage, and got possession of the
bell, the bandage being transferred to him who was laid hold
of.—Jamieson.
(_b_) In “The Modern Playmate,” edited by Rev. J. G. Wood, this game is
described under the name of “Jingling.” Mr. Wood says there is a rougher
game played at country feasts and fairs in which a pig takes the place
of the boy with the bell, but he does not give the locality (p. 7).
Strutt also describes it (_Sports_, p. 317).
Blind Bucky-Davy
In Somersetshire the game of “Blind Man’s Buff.” Also in Cornwall (see
Couch’s _Polperro_, p. 173). Pulman says this means “Blind buck and have
ye” (Elworthy’s _Dialect_).
Blind Harie
A name for “Blind Man’s Buff.”—Jamieson.
Blind Hob
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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