Newell (_Games of American Children_, p. 90) gives a version of this game. Drawing Dun out of the Mire Brand, quoting from “an old collection of satires, epigrams, &c.,” says this game is enumerated among other pastimes: At shove-groat, venter-point, or crosse and pile, At leaping o’er a Midsummer bone-fier, Or at _the drawing Dun out of the myer_. So in the _Dutchesse of Suffolke_, 1631: Well done, my masters, lends your hands, _Draw Dun out of the ditch_, Draw, pull, helpe all, so, so, well done. [_They pull him out._] They had shoved Bishop Bonner into a well, and were pulling him out. We find this game noticed at least as early as Chaucer’s time, in the _Manciple’s Prologue_: Then gan our hoste to jape and to play, And sayd, sires, what? _Dun is in the mire._ Nares (_Glossary_) says this game was a rural pastime, in which _Dun_ meant a dun horse, supposed to be stuck in the mire, and sometimes represented by one of the persons who played. Gifford (_Ben Jonson_, vol. vii. p. 283), who remembered having played at the game (doubtless in his native county, Devonshire), thus describes it:—“A log of wood is brought into the midst of the room: this is Dun (the cart horse), and a cry is raised that he is stuck in the mire. Two of the company advance, either with or without ropes, to draw him out. After repeated attempts they find themselves unable to do it, and call for more assistance. The game continues till all the company take part in it, when Dun is extricated of course; and the merriment arises from the awkward and affected efforts of the rustics to lift the log, and sundry arch contrivances to let the ends of it fall on one another’s toes.” Drop Handkerchief This is a game similar to Cat and Mouse, but takes its name from the use of the handkerchief to start the pursuit. Various rhyming formulæ are used in some places. In Monton, Lancashire (Miss Dendy), no rhyme is used. The children stand in a ring. One runs round with a handkerchief and drops it; the child behind whom it is dropped chases the dropper, the one who gets home first takes the vacant place, the other drops the handkerchief again. In Shropshire the two players pursue one another in and out of the ring, running under the uplifted hands of the players who compose it: the pursuer carefully keeping on the track of the pursued (Burne’s _Shropshire Folk-lore_, p. 512). The Dorsetshire variant is accompanied by a rhyme: I wrote a letter to my love; I carried water in my glove; And by the way I dropped it— I dropped it, I dropped it, I dropped it, &c.