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
(_b_) The players stand in a circle, boy and girl alternately, and sing
the lines. At the fourth line they all clap their hands, keeping time
with the song. When singing the seventh line each boy takes the girl on
his left hand,—dances round with her and places her on his right hand.
This is done till each girl has been all round the circle, and has been
turned or danced with by each boy. In the Wolstanton version (Miss
Bush), after singing the first four lines, the children fall behind one
another, march round, clapping their hands and singing; at the seventh
line they all join in couples and gallop round very quickly to the end.
When they finish, the girls stand at the side of the boys in couples,
and change places every time they go round until each girl has partnered
each boy. At Hexham there is rather more of the regular dance about the
game at the beginning. At the fourth line they set to partners and swing
round, the girls changing places at the end, and continuing until they
have been all round each time with a different partner.
(_c_) This game seems of kin to the old-fashioned country dances. Miss
Bush writes that this game was introduced into the school playground
from Derbyshire a few years ago, and is sung to a simple tune.
Puss in the Corner
The children stand at fixed points: one stands in the middle and chants,
“Poor puss wants a corner.” The others beckon with the fore-finger, and
calling, “Puss, puss,” run from point to point. Puss runs also to one of
the vacant spaces. The one left out becomes puss.—Monton, Lancashire
(Miss Dendy).
[Illustration]
The players place themselves each in some “coign of vantage,” as the
play place allows; one player in the middle is “out.” Those in the
corners change places with each other at choice, calling, “Puss, puss,
puss,” to attract each other’s attention. The one who is out watches his
opportunity to slip into a vacant corner, and oblige some one else to be
“out.” A favourite game _in the streets_ of Market Drayton.—Burne’s
_Shropshire Folk-lore_, p. 523.
When we played this game, the child who was to be “Puss” was invariably
decided upon by a counting-out rhyme. He or she being the last of the
five players “not he.” The words we used when wishful to change corners
were, “Puss, puss, give me a drop of milk.” The players in the corners
beckoned with the finger to an opposite player in another corner (A. B.
Gomme).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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