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
Pretty Miss Pink, she won’t come out,
Won’t come out, won’t come out, &c.
She will come out.
Pretty Miss Pink, she has come out, &c.
—Winterton, Lincs and Nottinghamshire (Miss M. Peacock.)
(_b_) The children place themselves in a row. They each choose a colour
to represent them. One player must be _pink_. Another player stands
facing them, and dances to and fro, singing the first four lines. The
dancer then sings the next two lines, and Miss Pink having answered
rushes forward, catches hold of the dancer’s hand, and sings the next
verse. Each colour is then taken in turn, but Miss Pink must always be
first.
(_c_) This is clearly a variant of “Pray, Pretty Miss,” colours being
used perhaps from a local custom at fairs and May meetings, where girls
were called by the colours of the ribbons they wore.
Prick at the Loop
A cheating game, played with a strap and skewer at fairs, &c, by persons
of the thimble-rig class, probably the same as the game called “Fast and
Loose.”
Prickey Sockey
Christmas morning is ushered in by the little maidens playing at the
game of “Prickey Sockey,” as they call it. They are dressed up in their
best, with their wrists adorned with rows of pins, and run about from
house to house inquiring who will play at the game. The door is opened
and one cries out—
Prickey sockey for a pin,
I car not whether I loss or win.
The game is played by the one holding between her two forefingers and
thumbs a pin, which she clasps tightly to prevent her antagonist seeing
either part of it, while her opponent guesses. The head of the pin is
“sockey,” and the point is “prickey,” and when the other guesses she
touches the end she guesses at, saying, “this for prickey,” or “this for
sockey,” At night the other delivers her two pins. Thus the game is
played, and when the clock strikes twelve it is declared up; that is, no
one can play after that time.—_Mirror_, 1828, vol. x. p. 443.
See “Headicks and Pinticks.”
Prickie and Jockie
A childish game, played with pins, and similar to “Odds or
Evens,”—Teviotdale (Jamieson), but it is more probable that this is the
game of “Prickey Sockey,” which Jamieson did not see played.
Priest-Cat (1)
See “Jack’s Alive.”
Priest-Cat (2)
A peat clod is put into the shell of the crook by one person, who then
shuts his eyes. Some one steals it. The other then goes round the circle
trying to discover the thief, and addressing particular individuals in a
rhyme—
Ye’re fair and leal,
Ye canna steal;
Ye’re black and fat,
Ye’re the thief of my priest-cat!
If he guesses wrong he is in a wadd, if right he has found the
thief.—Chambers’ _Popular Rhymes_, p. 128.
This is an entirely different game to the “Priest-Cat” given by
Mactaggart (see “Jack’s Alive”), and seems to have originated in the
discovery of stolen articles by divination.
Priest of the Parish
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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