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
A rough ring is made on the ground, and the players each place in it an
equal share in “stonies,” or alleys. They each bowl to the ring with
another marble from a distance. The boy whose marble is nearest has the
first chance to “taw;” if he misses a shot the second boy, whose marble
was next nearest to the ring, follows, and if he misses, the next, and
so on. If one player knocks out a marble, he is entitled to “taw” at the
rest in the ring until he misses; and if a sure “tawer” not one of the
others may have the chance to taw. Any one’s “taw” staying within the
ring after being tawn at the “shots,” is said to be “fat,” and the owner
of the “taw” must then replace any marbles he has knocked out in the
ring.—Earls Heaton, Yorks. (Herbert Hardy). Halliwell (_Dictionary_)
describes this game very much as above, except that a fine is imposed on
those who leave the taw in the ring. Ross and Stead (_Holderness
Glossary_) give this game as follows:—“Two boys place an equal number of
marbles in the form of a circle, which are then shot at alternately,
each boy pocketing the marbles he hits.” Addy (_Sheffield Glossary_)
says, “Ring-taw” is a marble marked with a red ring used in the game of
marbles. This is commonly called “ring” for short. Evans
(_Leicestershire Glossary_) describes the game much the same as above,
but adds some further details of interest. “If the game be knuckle-up
the player stands and shoots in that position. If the game be
knuckle-down he must stoop and shoot with the knuckle of the first
finger touching the ground at taw. In both cases, however, the player’s
toe must be on taw. The line was thus called taw as marking the place
for the toe of the player, and the marble a taw as being the one shot
from the taw-line, in contradistinction to those placed passively in
the ring-‘line’ in the one case, and ‘marble’ in the other being dropped
as superfluous.”—Strutt (_Sports and Pastimes_, p. 384) alludes to the
game.
In Ireland this game is also called “Ring,” and is played with marbles
and buttons. A ring is marked out on a level hard place, and every boy
puts down a button. The buttons are lightly struck in the centre of the
ring, and all play their marbles to the buttons. The nearest to them
play first. The line from which they play is generally about eight feet
away, and everybody does his best to strike the buttons. Any put out are
kept by the boy putting them out, and if a boy strikes a button, or
buttons, out, he can play on until he misses.—Waterville, Cos. Kerry and
Cork, T. J. Dennachy (through Mrs. B. B. Green of Dublin).
Rin-im-o’er
A game among children, in which one stands in the middle of a street,
road, or lane, while others run across it within a certain given
distance from the person so placed, and whose business it is to catch
one in passing, when he is released, and the captive takes his
place.—Teviotdale (Jamieson’s _Dictionary_).
It nearly resembles “Willie Wastle.”
Robbing the Parson’s Hen-Roost
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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