The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland (Vol 2 of 2): With Tunes, Singing-Rhymes, and Methods of Playing etc.Gomme, Alice Bertha
General
The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland (Vol 2 of 2): With Tunes, Singing-Rhymes, and Methods of Playing etc.
Gomme, Alice Bertha
Folklore -- Great Britain; Games -- Great Britain
In the Middlesex version (Miss Winfield) the children form a ring and go
round singing the verses, and apparently there is neither catching the
“last man” nor the “tug.” Mr. Emslie says he has seen and played the
game in Middlesex, and it always terminated with the cutting off the
last man’s head. In the Symondsbury version the players drop their hands
when they say “Sunday.” No tug is mentioned in the first Earls Heaton
version of the game (Mr. Hardy). In the second version he says bells are
represented by children. They should have in their hands, bells, or some
article to represent them. All stand in a row. First, second, and third
bells stand out in turn to sing. All rush for bells to sing chorus. Miss
Barclay writes: The children of the Fernham and Longcot choir, playing
on Christmas Eve, 1891, pulled across a handkerchief. In Monton,
Lancashire, Miss Dendy says the game is played as elsewhere, but without
words. In a Swaffham version (Miss Matthews), the girls sometimes call
themselves “Plum pudding and roast beef,” or whatever fancy may suggest,
instead of oranges and lemons. They join hands high enough for the
others to pass under, which they do to a call of “Ducky, Ducky,”
presently the hands come down and catch one, who is asked in
_confidence_ which she likes best. The game then proceeds in the usual
way, one side trying to pull the other over a marked line. Oranges and
lemons at Bocking, Essex, is an abbreviated variant of the rhyme printed
by Halliwell (_Folk-lore Record_, iii., part II., 171). In
Nottinghamshire, Miss Peacock says it is sometimes called “Tarts and
Cheesecakes.” Moor (_Suffolk Words_) mentions “Oranges and Lemons” as
played by both girls and boys, and adds, “I believe it is nearly the
same as ‘Plum Pudding and Roast Beef.’” In the Suffolk version sent by
Mrs. Haddon a new word is introduced, “carwoo.” This is the signal for
one of the line to be caught. Miss Eddleston, Gainford, Durham, says
this game is called—
Through and through the shally go,
The last shall be taken.
Mr. Halliwell (_Nursery Rhymes_, No. cclxxxi.) adopts the verses
entitled, “The Merry Bells of London,” from Gammer Gurton’s _Garland_,
1783, as the origin of this game. In Aberdeen, Mr. M. L. Rouse tells me
he has heard Scotch children apparently playing the same game, “Oranges
and Lemons, ask, Which would you have, ‘A sack of corn or a sack of
coals?’”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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