Gifford thinks that this sport was probably the diversion of the age, and of the same stamp with our modern “Cross Purposes,” “Questions,” and “Commands,” &c. Thread the Needle [Music] —Miss Dendy. [Music] —Harpenden (Miss Lloyd). I. Thread my grandmother’s needle! Thread my grandmother’s needle! Thread my grandmother’s needle! Open your gates as wide as high, And let King George and me go by. It is so dark I cannot see To thread my grandmother’s needle! _Who stole the money-box?_ —London (Miss Dendy). II. Open your gates as wide as I, [high?] And let King George’s horses by; For the night is dark and we cannot see, But thread your long needle and sew. —Belfast (W. H. Patterson). III. Thread the tailor’s needle, The tailor’s blind, so he can’t see; So open the gates as wide as wide, And let King George and his lady pass by. —Bocking, Essex (_Folk-lore Record_, iii. 170). IV. Thread my grandmother’s needle, Thread my grandmother’s needle; It is too dark we cannot see To thread my grandmother’s needle. —Harpenden (Mrs. Lloyd). V. Thread the needle, Thread the needle, Nine, nine, nine, Let King George and I pass by. —Liphook, Hants (Miss Fowler). VI. Open the gates as wide as wide, And let King George go through with his bride; It is so dark, we cannot see To threaddle the tailor’s needle. —Parish _Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect_. VII. Brother Jack, if ye were mine, I would give you claret wine; Claret wine’s gude and fine— Through the needle-e’e, boys! —_Blackwood’s Magazine_, August 1821. VIII. Through the needle-e’e, boys, One, two, three, boys. —Ross-shire (Rev. W. Gregor). IX. Hop my needle, burn my thread, Come thread my needle, Jo-hey. —Lincoln (C. C. Bell). X. Come thread a long needle, come thread, The eye is too little, the needle’s too big. —Hanbury, Staffs. (Miss Edith Hollis). XI. Thread the needle thro’ the skin, Sometimes out and sometimes in. —Warwickshire, Northall’s _Folk Rhymes_, 397. XII. Open the gates as wide as the sky, And let King George and his lady go by. —Ellesmere, Burne’s _Shropshire Folk-lore_, p. 321.