(_e_) In considering the probable origin of the game, the first thing will be to ascertain as far as possible what ideas the words are intended to convey. Taking note of the results of the analysis, so far as they show the corruptions which have taken place in the words, it seems clear that though it is not possible to restore the original words, their original meaning is still preserved. This is, that they accompanied the performance of a marriage ceremony, and that a chief feature of this ceremony was connected with some form of water-worship, or some rite in which water played a chief part. Now it has been noted before that the games of children have preserved, by adaptation, the marriage ceremony of ancient times (_e.g._, “Merry ma Tansa,” “Nuts in May,” “Poor Mary,” “Round and Round the Village”); but this is the first instance where such an important particularisation as that implied by water-worship qualifies the marriage ceremony. It is therefore necessary to see what this exactly means. Mr. Hartland, in his _Perseus_ (i. 167-9), draws attention to the general significance of the water ceremonial in marriage customs, and Mr. F. B. Jevons, in his introduction to Plutarch’s _Romane Questions_, and in the _Transactions of the Folk-lore Congress_, 1891, deals with the subject in reference to the origin of custom obtaining among both Aryan and non-Aryan speaking people. In this connection an important consideration arises. The Esthonian brides, on the morning after the wedding, are taken to make offerings to the water spirit, and they throw offerings into the spring (or a vessel of water), overturn a vessel of water in the house, and sprinkle their bridegrooms with water. The Hindoo offerings of the bride were cast into a water vessel, and the bride sprinkles the court of the new house with water by way of exorcism, and also sprinkles the bridegroom (Jevons, _loc. cit._, p. 345). Here the parallel between the non-Aryan Esthonian custom and the Aryan Hindoo custom is very close, and it is a part of Mr. Jevons’ argument that, among the Teutons, with whom alone of Aryan speaking peoples the Esthonians came into contact, the custom was limited to the bride simply stepping over a vessel of water. There is certainly something a great deal more than the parallel to the Teutonic custom in the game of “Sally, Sally Water,” and as it equates more nearly to Hindoo and Esthonian custom, the question is, Does it help Mr. Jevons in the important point he raises? I think it does. A custom is very low down among the strata of survivals when it is only to be recognised as part of a children’s singing game, and the proposition it suggests is that children have preserved more of the old custom than was preserved by the people who adopted a portion of it into their marriage ceremony. A custom so treated must be older than the marriage ceremony with which it thus came into contact, and if this is a true conclusion, we have in this children’s game a relic of the