CHILDREN'S GAMES.

[From an old engraving by Van der Venne.]

GAMES AND SONGS
OF
AMERICAN CHILDREN

COLLECTED AND COMPARED

BY

WILLIAM WELLS NEWELL

NEW YORK

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS

1884

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by

HARPER & BROTHERS,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

All rights reserved.

[EDITOR'S NOTE.]

The existence of any children's tradition in America, maintained independently of print, has hitherto been scarcely noticed. Yet it appears that, in this minor but curious branch of folk-lore, the vein in the United States is both richer and purer than that so far worked in Great Britain. These games supply material for the elucidation of a subject hitherto obscure: they exhibit the true relation of ancient English lore of this kind to that of the continent of Europe; while the amusements of youth in other languages are often illustrated by American custom, which compares favorably, in respect of compass and antiquity, with that of European countries.

Of the two branches into which the lore of the nursery may be divided—the tradition of children and the tradition of nurses—the present collection includes only the former. It is devoted to formulas of play which children have preserved from generation to generation, without the intervention, often without the knowledge, of older minds. Were these—trifling as they often are—merely local and individual, they might be passed over with a smile; but being English and European, they form not the least curious chapter of the history of manners and customs. It has therefore been an essential part of the editor's object to exhibit their correspondences and history; but, unwilling to overcloud with cumbrous research that healthy and bright atmosphere which invests all that really belongs to childhood, he has thought it best to remand to an appendix the necessary references, retaining in the text only so much as may be reasonably supposed of interest to the readers in whom one or another page may awaken early memories.

He has to express sincere thanks to the friends, in different parts of the country, whose kind assistance has rendered possible this volume, in which almost every one of the older states is represented; and he will be grateful for such further information as may tend to render the collection more accurate and complete.

The melodies which accompany many of the games have been written from the recitation of children by S. Austen Pearce, Mus. Doc. Oxon.

[CONTENTS.]

[GAMES AND SONGS]
OF
AMERICAN CHILDREN.

[INTRODUCTORY.]

I.
THE DIFFUSION AND ORIGIN OF AMERICAN GAME-RHYMES.

"The hideous Thickets in this place[1] were such that Wolfes and Beares nurst up their young from the eyes of all beholders in those very places where the streets are full of Girles and Boys sporting up and downe, with a continued concourse of people."—"Wonder-working Providence in New England," 1654.

"The first settlers came from England, and were of the middle rank, and chiefly Friends. * * * In early times weddings were held as festivals, probably in imitation of such a practice in England. Relations, friends, and neighbors were generally invited, sometimes to the amount of one or two hundred. * * * They frequently met again next day; and being mostly young people, and from under restraint, practised social plays and sports."—Watson's "Account of Buckingham and Solebury" (Pennsylvania; settled about 1682).

A majority of the games of children are played with rhymed formulas, which have been handed down from generation to generation. These we have collected in part from the children themselves, in greater part from persons of mature age who remember the usages of their youth; for this collection represents an expiring custom. The vine of oral tradition, of popular poetry, which for a thousand years has twined and bloomed on English soil, in other days enriching with color and fragrance equally the castle and the cottage, is perishing at the roots; its prouder branches have long since been blasted, and children's song, its humble but longest-flowering offshoot, will soon have shared their fate.

It proves upon examination that these childish usages of play are almost entirely of old English origin. A few games, it is true, appear to have been lately imported from England or Ireland, or borrowed from the French or the German; but these make up only a small proportion of the whole. Many of the rounds still common in our cities, judging from their incoherence and rudeness, might be supposed inventions of "Arabs of the streets;" but these invariably prove to be mere corruptions of songs long familiar on American soil. The influence of print is here practically nothing; and a rhyme used in the sports of American children almost always varies from the form of the same game in Great Britain, when such now exists.

There are quarters of the great city of New York in which one hears the dialect, and meets the faces, of Cork or Tipperary. But the children of these immigrants attend the public school, that mighty engine of equalization; their language has seldom more than a trace of accent, and they adopt from schoolmates local formulas for games, differing more or less from those which their parents used on the other side of the sea. In other parts of the town, a German may live for years, needing and using in business and social intercourse no tongue but his own, and may return to Europe innocent of any knowledge of the English speech. Children of such residents speak German in their homes, and play with each other the games they have brought with them from the Fatherland. But they all speak English also, are familiar with the songs which American children sing, and employ these too in their sports. There is no transference from one tongue to another, unless in a few cases, when the barrier of rhyme does not exist. The English-speaking population, which imposes on all new-comers its language, imposes also its traditions, even the traditions of children.

A curious inquirer who should set about forming a collection of these rhymes, would naturally look for differences in the tradition of different parts of the Union, would desire to contrast the characteristic amusements of children in the North and in the South, descendants of Puritan and Quaker. In this he would find his expectations disappointed, and for the reason assigned. This lore belongs, in the main, to the day before such distinctions came into existence; it has been maintained with equal pertinacity, and with small variations, from Canada to the Gulf. Even in districts distinguished by severity of moral doctrines, it does not appear that any attempt was made to interfere with the liberty of youth. Nowhere have the old sports (often, it is true, in crude rustic forms) been more generally maintained than in localities famous for Puritanism. Thus, by a natural law of reversion, something of the music, grace, and gayety of an earlier period of unconscious and natural living has been preserved to sweeten the formality, angularity, and tedium of an otherwise beneficial religious movement.

It is only within the century that America has become the land of motion and novelty. During the long colonial period, the quiet towns, less in communication with distant settlements than with the mother-country itself, removed from the currents of thought circulating in Europe, were under those conditions in which tradition is most prized and longest maintained. The old English lore in its higher branches, the ballad and the tale, already belonging to the past at the time of the settlement, was only sparingly existent among the intelligent class from which America was peopled; but such as they did bring with them was retained. Besides, the greater simplicity and freedom of American life caused, as it would seem, these childish amusements to be kept up by intelligent and cultivated families after the corresponding class in England had frowned them down as too promiscuous and informal. But it is among families with the greatest claims to social respectability that our rhymes have, in general, been best preserved.

During the time of which we are writing, independent local usages sprang up, so that each town had oftentimes its own formulas and names for children's sports; but these were, after all, only selections from a common stock, one place retaining one part, another, of the old tradition. But in the course of the last two generations (and this is a secondary reason for the uniformity of our games in different parts of the country) the extension of intercourse between the States has tended to diffuse them, so that petty rhymes, lately invented, have sometimes gained currency from Maine to Georgia.

We proceed to speak of our games as they exist on the other side of the sea. A comparison with English and Scotch collections shows us very few games mentioned as surviving in Great Britain which we cannot parallel in independent forms. On the other hand, there are numerous instances in which rhymes of this sort, still current in America, do not appear to be now known in the mother-country, though they oftentimes have equivalents on the continent of Europe. In nearly all such cases it is plain that the New World has preserved what the Old World has forgotten; and the amusements of children to-day picture to us the dances which delighted the court as well as the people of the Old England before the settlement of the New.[2]

To develop the interest of our subject, however, we must go beyond the limits of the English tongue. The practice of American children enables us to picture to ourselves the sports which pleased the infancy of Froissart and Rabelais.[3] A dramatic action of the Virginia hills preserves the usage of Färöe and Iceland, of Sweden and Venice.[4] We discover that it is an unusual thing to find any remarkable childish sport on the European continent which failed to domesticate itself (though now perhaps forgotten) in England. It is thus vividly and irresistibly forced upon our notice, that the traditions of the principal nations of Europe have differed little more than the dialects of one language, the common tongue, so to speak, of religion, chivalry, and civilization.

A different explanation has been given to this coincidence. When only the agreement, in a few cases, of English and German rhymes was noticed, it was assumed that the correspondence was owing to race-migration; to the settlement in England of German tribes, who brought with them national traditions. The present volume would be sufficient to show the untenability of such an hypothesis. The resemblance of children's songs in different countries, like the similarity of popular traditions in general, is owing to their perpetual diffusion from land to land; a diffusion which has been going on in all ages, in all directions, and with all degrees of rapidity. But the interest of their resemblance is hardly diminished by this consideration. The character of some of these parallelisms proves that for the diffusion in Europe of certain games of our collection we must go back to the early Middle Age;[5] while the extent of the identity of our American (that is, of old English) child's lore with the European is a continual surprise.[6]

Internal evidence alone would be sufficient to refer many of the sports to a mediæval origin, for we can still trace in them the expression of the life of that period.

We comprehend how deeply mediæval religious conceptions affected the life of the time, when we see that allusions to those beliefs are still concealed in the playing of children. We find that the tests which the soul, escaped from the body, had, as it was supposed, to undergo—the scales of St. Michael, the keys of St. Peter, and the perpetual warfare of angels and devils over departed souls—were familiarly represented and dramatized in the sports of infants.[7] Such allusions have, it is true, been excluded from English games; but that these once abounded with them can be made abundantly evident. We see that chivalric warfare, the building and siege of castles, the march and the charge of armies, equally supplied material for childish mimicry. We learn how, in this manner, the social state and habits of half a thousand years ago unconsciously furnish the amusement of youth, when the faith and fashion of the ancient day is no longer intelligible to their elders.

It will be obvious that many of the game-rhymes in this collection were not composed by children. They were formerly played, as in many countries they are still played, by young persons of marriageable age, or even by mature men and women. The truth is, that in past centuries all the world, judged by our present standard, seems to have been a little childish. The maids of honor of Queen Elizabeth's day, if we may credit the poets, were devoted to the game of tag,[8] and conceived it a waste of time to pass in idleness hours which might be employed in that pleasure, with which Diana and her nymphs were supposed to amuse themselves. Froissart describes the court of France as amusing itself with sports familiar to his own childhood; and the Spectator speaks of the fashionable ladies of London as occupied with a game which is represented in this series.[9]

We need not, however, go to remote times or lands for illustration which is supplied by New England country towns of a generation since. In these, dancing, under that name, was little practised; it was confined to one or two balls in the course of the year on such occasions as the Fourth of July, lasting into the morning hours. At other times, the amusement of young people at their gatherings was "playing games." These games generally resulted in forfeits, to be redeemed by kissing, in every possible variety of position and method. Many of these games were rounds; but as they were not called dances, and as mankind pays more attention to words than things, the religious conscience of the community, which objected to dancing, took no alarm. Such were the pleasures of young men and women from sixteen to twenty-five years of age. Nor were the participants mere rustics; many of them could boast as good blood, as careful breeding, and as much intelligence, as any in the land. Neither was the morality or sensitiveness of the young women of that day in any respect inferior to what it is at present.

Now that our country towns are become mere outlying suburbs of cities, these remarks may be read with a smile at the rude simplicity of old-fashioned American life. But the laugh should be directed, not at our own country, but at the by-gone age.[10] In respectable and cultivated French society, at the time of which we speak, the amusements, not merely of young people, but of their elders as well, were every whit as crude. The suggestion is so contrary to our preconceived ideas, that we hasten to shelter ourselves behind the respectable name of Madame Celnart, who, as a recognized authority on etiquette, must pass for an unimpeachable witness.[11] This writer compiled a very curious "Complete Manual of Games of Society, containing all the games proper for young people of both sexes," which seems to have gained public approbation, since it reached a second edition in 1830. In her preface she recommends the games of which we have been speaking as recreations for business men:

"Another consideration in favor of games of society: it must be admitted that for persons leading a sedentary life, and occupied all day in writing and reckoning (the case with most men), a game which demands the same attitude, the same tension of mind, is a poor recreation. * * * On the contrary, the varying movement of games of society, their diversity, the gracious and gay ideas which these games inspire, the decorous caresses which they permit—all this combines to give real amusement. These caresses can alarm neither modesty nor prudence, since a kiss in honor given and taken before numerous witnesses is often an act of propriety."

She prefers "rounds" to other amusements: "All hands united; all feet in cadence; all mouths repeating the same refrain; the numerous turns, the merry airs, the facile and rapid pantomime, the kisses which usually accompany them—everything combines, in my opinion, to make rounds the exercise of free and lively gayety."

We find among the ring-games given by our author, and recommended to men of affairs, several of which English forms exist in our collection, and are familiar to all children.[12]

We are thus led to remark an important truth. It is altogether a mistake to suppose that these games (or, indeed, popular lore of any description) originated with peasants, or describe the life of peasants. The tradition, on the contrary, invariably came from above, from the intelligent class. If these usages seem rustic, it is only because the country retained what the city forgot, in consequence of the change of manners to which it was sooner exposed. Such customs were, at no remote date, the pleasures of courts and palaces. Many games of our collection, on the other hand, have, it is true, always belonged to children; but no division-line can be drawn, since out of sports now purely infantine have arisen dances and songs which have for centuries been favorites with young men and women.[13]

II.
THE DANCE, THE BALLAD, AND THE GAME.

Entre Paris et Saint-Denis
Il s'élève une danse;
Toutes les dames de la ville
Sont alentour qui dansent.

Toutes les dames de la ville
Sont alentour qui dansent;
Il n'y a que la fille du roi
D'un côté qui regarde.

Canadian Round.

Games accompanied by song may be divided into ballads, songs, and games proper.

By the term ballad is properly signified a dance-song, or dramatic poem sung and acted in the dance. The very word, derived through the late Latin[14] from the Greek, attests that golden chain of oral tradition which links our modern time, across centuries of invasion and conflict, with the bright life of classic antiquity.

Still more pleasantly is a like history contained in another name for the same custom. The usual old English name for the round dance, or its accompanying song, was carol, which we now use in the restricted sense of a festival hymn. Chaucer's "Romaunt of the Rose" describes for us the movement of the "karole," danced on the "grene gras" in the spring days. He shows us knights and ladies holding each other by the hand, in a flowery garden where the May music of mavis and nightingale blends with the "clere and ful swete karoling" of the lady who sings for the dancers. This sense of the word continued in classic use till the sixteenth century, and has survived in dialect to the present day. Many of the games of our series are such rounds or carols, "love-dances" in which youths and maidens formerly stood in the ring by couples, holding each other's hands, though our children no longer observe that arrangement. Now the word carol is only a modernized form of chorus. Thus childish habit has preserved to the present day the idea and movement of the village ring-dance, the chorus, such as it existed centuries or millenniums before another and religious form of the dance accompanied by song had received that technical name in the Greek drama.

Very little was needed to turn the ballad into a dramatic performance, by assigning different parts to different actors. It is natural also for children to act out the stories they hear. We find, accordingly, that ancient ballads have sometimes passed into children's games. But, in the present collection, the majority of the pieces which can be referred to the ballad are of a different character. In these the remainder of the history is reduced to a few lines, or to a single couplet. These historiettes have retained the situation, omitting the narration, of the ancient song. We can understand how youthful or rustic minds, when the popular song had nearly passed out of mind, should have vaguely maintained the upshot of the story:

Here sits the Queen of England in her chair;
She has lost the true love that she had last year.

It is the tragedy told in a line; and what more is needed, since an excuse is already provided for the kiss or the romp?[15]

Of lyric song we have scarce anything to offer. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries gave birth, all over Europe, to popular lyric poesy, modelled on literary antecedents, and replacing in general estimation the ancient dramatic ballad. Shakespeare, who merely refers to the ballad proper, makes frequent use of the popular song of his day. In many countries this taste has penetrated to the people; the power of lyric composition has become general, so that a collection of popular songs will contain many sweet and pleasing pieces. The ballad has thus passed into the round. An inconsequent but musical babble, like that of a brook or a child, has replaced the severe accents of the ancient narration. But in English—why, we will not pause to inquire—it is not so. Whatever of this kind once existed has passed away, leaving but little trace. All that is poetical or pretty is the relic of past centuries; and when the ancient treasure is spent, absolute prose succeeds. The modern soil is incapable of giving birth to a single flower.

Our rhymes, therefore, belong almost entirely to the third class—the game proper. But though less interesting poetically, and only recorded at a late period, it does not follow that they have not as ancient a history as the oldest ballads; on the contrary, it will abundantly appear that the formulas used in games have an especially persistent life. As the ballad is a dramatic narrative, so the game is a dramatic action, or series of actions; and the latter is as primitive as the former, while both were employed to regulate the dance.

Most modern dances, silently performed in couples, are merely lively movements; but in all ancient performances of the sort the idea is as essential as the form. Precisely as the meaningless refrains of many ballads arise from a forgetfulness of intelligible words, dances which are only motion grew out of dances which expressed something. The dance was originally the dramatized expression of any feature of nature or life which excited interest. Every department of human labor—the work of the farmer, weaver, or tradesman; the church, the court, and the army; the habits and movements of the animals which seem so near to man in his simplicity, and in whose life he takes so active an interest; the ways and works of the potent supernatural beings, good or evil, or, rather, beneficent or dangerous, by whom he believes himself surrounded; angel and devil, witch and ogre—representations of all these served, each in turn, for the amusement of an idle hour, when the labor which is the bitterness of the enforced workman is a jest to the free youth, and the introduction of spiritual fears which constitute the terror of darkness only adds an agreeable excitement to the sports of the play-ground. All this was expressed in song shared by the whole company, which was once the invariable attendant of the dance, so that the two made up but one idea, and to "sing a dance" and "dance a song" were identical expressions.

The children's rounds of to-day, in which each form of words has its accompanying arrangement of the ring, its significant motion and gesture, thus possess historic interest. For these preserve for us some picture of the conduct of the ballads, dances, and games which were once the amusement of the palace as of the hamlet.

The form of the verses used in the games also deserves note. These usually consist either of a rhyming couplet, or of four lines in which the second and fourth rhyme; they are often accompanied by a refrain, which may be a single added line, or may be made up of two lines inserted into the stanza; and in place of exact consonance, any assonance, or similarity of sound, will answer for the rhyme. Above all, they possess the freedom and quaintness, the tendency to vary in detail while preserving the general idea, which distinguish a living oral tradition from the monotonous printed page; in these respects, our rhymes, humble though they be, are marked as the last echo of the ancient popular poetry.

There is especial reason why an Englishman, or the descendants of Englishmen, should take pride in the national popular song.[16] European mediæval tradition was, it is true, in a measure a common stock; but, though the themes may often have been thus supplied, the poetic form which was given to that material in each land was determined by the genius of the language and of the people. Now, among all its neighbors, the English popular poesy was the most courtly, the most lyric, the most sweet. So much we can still discern by what time has spared.

The English ballad was already born when Canute the Dane coasted the shore of Britain; its golden age was already over when Dante summed up mediæval thought in the "Divina Commedia;" its reproductive period was at an end when Columbus enlarged the horizon of Europe to admit a New World; it was a memory of the past when the American colonies were founded; but even in its last echoes there lingers we know not what mysterious charm of freshness, poetic atmosphere, and eternal youth. Even in these nursery rhymes some grace of the ancient song survives. A girl is a "red rose," a "pretty fair maid," the "finest flower," the "flower of May." The verse itself, simple as it is, often corrupted, is a cry of delight in existence, of satisfaction with nature; its season is the season of bloom and of love; its refrain is "For we are all so gay." It comes to us, in its innocence and freshness, like the breath of a distant and inaccessible garden, tainted now and then by the odors of intervening city streets. But the vulgarity is modern, accidental; the pleasure and poetry are of the original essence.

We cannot but look with regret on the threatened disappearance of these childish traditions, which have given so much happiness to so many generations, and which a single age has nearly forgotten. These songs have fulfilled the conditions of healthy amusement, as nothing else can do. The proper performance of the round, or conduct of the sport, was to youthful minds a matter of the most serious concern—a little drama which could be represented over and over for hours, in which self-consciousness was absorbed in the ambition of the actors to set forth properly their parts. The recital had that feature which distinguishes popular tradition in general, and wherein it is so poorly replaced by literature. Here was no repetition by rote; but the mind and heart were active, the spirit of the language appropriated, and a vein of deep though childish poetry nourished sentiment and imagination. It seems a thousand pities that the ancient tree should not continue to blossom; that whatever may have been acrid or tasteless in the fruit cannot be corrected by the ingrafting of a later time. There is something so agreeable in the idea of an inheritance of thought kept up by childhood itself, created for and adapted to its own needs, that it is hard to consent to part with it. The loss cannot be made good by the deliberate invention of older minds. Children's amusement, directed and controlled by grown people, would be neither childish nor amusing. True child's play is a sacred mystery, at which their elders can only obtain glances by stealth through the crevice of the curtain. Children will never adopt as their own tradition the games which may be composed or remodelled, professedly for their amusement, but with the secret purpose of moral direction.

We do not mean, however, to sigh over natural changes. These amusements came into existence because they were adapted to the conditions of early life; they pass away because those conditions are altered. The taste of other days sustained them; the taste of our day abandons them. This surrender is only one symptom of a mighty change which has come over the human mind, and which bids fair to cause the recent time, a thousand years hence, to be looked back upon as a dividing-mark in the history of intelligence. If it should turn out that the childhood of the human intellect is passing gradually into the "light of common day"—if the past is to be looked back upon with that affectionate though unreasoning interest with which a grown man remembers his imaginative youth—then every fragment which illustrates that past will possess an attraction independent of its intrinsic value.

III.
MAY GAMES.

All lovers' hearts that are in care
To their ladies they do repair,
In fresh mornings before the day,
Before the day;
And are in mirth aye more and more,
Through gladness of this lovely May,
Through gladness of this lovely May.

Old Song.

Children's rhymes and songs have been handed down in two principal ways. First, they have been used for winter amusements, particularly at the Christmas season,[17] as has from time immemorial been the case in northern countries; and, secondly, they have been sung as rounds and dances, especially during summer evenings, upon the village green or city sidewalk. The latter custom is fast becoming extinct, though the circling ring of little girls "on the green grass turning" may now and then be still observed; but a generation since the practice was common with all classes. The proper time for such sports is the early summer; and many of our rounds declare themselves in words, as well as by sentiment, to be the remainder of the ancient May dances. To render this clear, it will be necessary to give some account of the May festival; but we shall confine ourselves to customs of which we can point out relics in our own land. These we can illustrate, without repeating the descriptions of English writers, from Continental usage, which was in most respects identical with old English practice.

It was an ancient habit for the young men of a village, on the eve of the holiday, to go into the forests and select the tallest and straightest tree which could be found. This was adorned with ribbons and flowers, brought home with great ceremony, and planted in front of the church, or at the door of some noted person, where it remained permanently to form the centre of sports and dances. The May-pole itself, the songs sung about it, and the maiden who was queen of the feast, were alike called May. In the absence of any classic mention, the universality of the practice in mediæval Europe, and the common Latin name, may be taken as proof that similar usages made part of the festival held about the calends of May—the Floralia or Majuma.

Notwithstanding all that has been said about the license of this festival in the days of the Empire, it is altogether probable that the essential character of the feast of Flora or Maia was not very different from its mediæval or modern survival. The abundance of flowers, the excursions to the mountains, the decoration of houses, and the very name of Flora, prove that, whatever abuses may have introduced themselves, and whatever primitive superstitions may have been intermingled—superstitions to an early time harmless and pure, and only in the decline of faith the source of offence and corruption—the population of ancient Italy shared that natural and innocent delight in the season of blossom which afterwards affected to more conscious expression Chaucer and Milton.

This "bringing home of summer and May" was symbolic; the tree, dressed out in garlands, typifying the fertility of the year. As in all such rites, the songs and dances, of a more or less religious character, were supposed to have the power of causing the productiveness which they extolled or represented.[18] These practices, however, were not merely superstitious; mirth and music expressed the delight of the human heart, in its simplicity, at the reappearance of verdure and blossom, and thanksgiving to the generous Bestower, which, so long as man shall exist on earth, will be instinctively awakened by the bright opening of the annual drama. Superstition has been the support about which poetry has twined: it is a common mistake of investigators to be content with pointing out the former, and overlooking the coeval existence of the latter. Thus the natural mirth and merriment of the season blended with the supposed efficacy of the rite; and the primitive character of the ring-dance appears to be the circle about the sacred tree in honor of the period of bloom.

A relic, though a trifling one, of the ancient custom, may be seen in some of our cities on the early days of the month. In New York, at least, groups of children may then be observed carrying through the streets a pole painted with gay stripes, ribbons depending from its top, which are held at the end by members of the little company. These proceed, perhaps, to the Central Park, where they conduct their festivities, forming the ring, and playing games which are included in our collection. Within a few years, however, these afternoon expeditions have become rare.

The May-pole, as we have described it, belonged to the village; but a like usage was kept up by individuals. It was the duty of every lover to go into the woods on the eve or early morn of May-day, and bring thence boughs and garlands, which he either planted before the door of his mistress, or affixed thereto, according to local custom. The particular tree, or bush (this expression meaning no more than bough), preferred for the purpose was the hawthorn, which is properly the tree of May, as blooming in the month the name of which it has in many countries received. A belief in the protective influence of the white-thorn, when attached to the house-door, dates back to Roman times. The May-tree, whatever its species, was often adorned with ribbons and silk, with fruit or birds, sometimes with written poems. The lover brought his offering at early dawn, and it was the duty of his mistress to be present at her window and receive it; thus we have in a song of the fifteenth or sixteenth century from the Netherlands—

Fair maiden, lie you still asleep,
And let the morning go?
Arise, arise, accept the May,
That stands here all a-blow.

An English carol alludes to the same practice—

A branch of May I bring to you,
Before your door it stands.[19]

The custom was so universal as to give rise to proverbial expressions. Thus, in Italy, "to plant a May at every door" meant to be very susceptible; and in France, to "esmayer" a girl was to court her.

Some of our readers may be surprised to learn that an offshoot of this usage still exists in the United States; the custom, namely, of hanging "May baskets." A half-century since, in Western Massachusetts, a lad would rise early on May-morning, perhaps at three o'clock, and go into the fields. He gathered the trailing arbutus (the only flower there available at the season), and with his best skill made a "basket," by the aid of "winter-green" and similar verdure. This he cautiously affixed to the door of any girl whom he wished to honor. She was left to guess the giver. The practice is still common in many parts of the country, but in a different form. Both boys and girls make "May baskets," and on May-eve attach them to each other's doors, ringing at the same time the house-bell. A pursuit follows, and whoever can capture the responsible person is entitled to a kiss. We do not venture to assert that the latter usage is entirely a corruption of the former.[20]

The term "May-baskets" is no doubt a modernized form of the old English word "May-buskets," employed by Spenser.[21] Buskets are no more than bushes—that is, as we have already explained, the flowering branches of hawthorn or other tree, picked early on the May-morn, and used to decorate the house. It seems likely that a misunderstanding of the word changed the fashion of the usage; the American lad, instead of attaching a bough, hung a basket to his sweetheart's door.

A French writer pleasantly describes the customs of which we are speaking, as they exist in his own province of Champagne: "The hours have passed; it is midnight; the doors of the young lads open. Each issues noiselessly. He holds in his hand branches and bouquets, garlands and crowns of flowers. Above the gate of his mistress his hand, trembling with love, places his mysterious homage; then, quietly as he came, he retires, saying, 'Perhaps she has seen me.' ... The day dawns. Up! boys and girls! up! it is the first of May! up, and sing! The young men, decked out with ribbons and wild-flowers, go from door to door to sing the month of May and their love."

Of the morning song and dance about the "bush," or branches of trees planted as we have described, we have evidence in the words of American rhymes. Thus—

As we go round the mulberry-bush,
All on a frosty morning.

In one or two instances, a similar refrain figures in the childish sports of little girls, who have probably got it by imitation; in others, it is the sign of an old May game.[22] An English writer of the sixteenth century alludes to the morning dance in a way which proves that these songs really represent the practice of his time.[23]

The playing of May games was by no means confined to the exact date of the festival. The sign of a country tavern in England was a thorn-bush fixed on a pole, and about this "bush" took place the dance of wedding companies who came to the tavern to feast, whence this post was called the bride's stake. Whether the thorn-bush was introduced into the "New English" settlements we cannot say; but the dancing at weddings was common, at least among that portion of those communities which was not bound by the religious restraint that controlled the ruling class. There were, as a French refugee wrote home in 1688, "all kinds of life and manners" in the colonies. In the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, 7th May, 1651, the General Court resolved, "Whereas it is observed that there are many abuses and disorders by dauncinge in ordinaryes, whether mixt or unmixt, upon marriage of some persons, this court doth order, that henceforward there shall be no dauncinge upon such occasion, or at other times, in ordinaryes, upon the paine of five shillings, for every person that shall so daunce in ordinaryes." While youth in the cities might be as gay as elsewhere, in many districts the Puritan spirit prevailed, and the very name of dancing was looked on with aversion. But the young people met this emergency with great discretion; they simply called their amusements playing games, and under this name kept up many of the rounds which were the time-honored dances of the old country.

The French writer whom we have already had occasion to quote goes on to speak of the customs of the younger girls of his province—the bachelettes, as they are called. "On the first of May, dressed in white, they put at their head the sweetest and prettiest of their number. They robe her for the occasion: a white veil, a crown of white flowers adorn her head; she carries a candle in her hand; she is their queen, she is the Trimouzette. Then, all together, they go from door to door singing the song of the Trimouzettes; they ask contributions for adorning the altar of the Virgin, for celebrating, in a joyous repast, the festival of the Queen of Heaven."

This May procession, which has been the custom of girls for centuries, from Spain to Denmark, existed, perhaps still exists, in New England. Until very recently, children in all parts of the United States maintained the ancient habit of rising at dawn of May-day, and sallying forth in search of flowers. The writer well remembers his own youthful excursions, sometimes rewarded, even in chilly Massachusetts, by the early blue star of the hepatica, or the pink drooping bell of the anemone. The maids, too, had rites of their own. In those days, troops of young girls might still be seen, bareheaded and dressed in white, their May-queen crowned with a garland of colored paper. But common-sense has prevailed at last over poetic tradition; and as an act of homage to east winds, a hostile force more powerful at that period than the breath of Flora, it has been agreed that summer in New England does not begin until June.

These May-day performances, however, were originally no children's custom; in this, as in so many other respects, the children have only proved more conservative of old habit than their elders. There can be no doubt that these are the survivals of the ancient processions of Ceres, Maia, Flora, or by whatever other name the "good goddess," the patroness of the fertile earth, was named, in which she was solemnly borne forth to view and bless the fields. The queen of May herself represents the mistress of Spring; she seems properly only to have overlooked the games in which she took no active part.[24]

A writer of the fifteenth century thus describes the European custom of his day: "A girl adorned with precious garments, seated on a chariot filled with leaves and flowers, was called the queen of May; and the girls who accompanied her as her handmaidens, addressing the youths who passed by, demanded money for their queen. This festivity is still preserved in many countries, especially Spain." The usage survives in the dolls which in parts of England children carry round in baskets of flowers on May-day, requesting contributions.

Of this custom a very poetical example, not noticed by English collectors, has fallen under our own observation. We will suppose ourselves in Cornwall on May-day; the grassy banks of the sunken lanes are gay with the domestic blooms dear to old poetry; the grass is starry with pink and white daisies; the spreading limbs of the beech are clad in verdure, and among the budding elms of the hedge-rows "birds of every sort" "send forth their notes and make great mirth." A file of children, rosy-faced boys of five or six years, is seen approaching; their leader is discoursing imitative music on a wooden fife, to whose imaginary notes the rest keep time with dancing steps. The second and third of the party carry a miniature ship; its cargo, its rigging, are blooms of the season, bluebells and wall-flowers; the ship is borne from door to door, where stand the smiling farmers and their wives; none is too poor to add a penny to the store. As the company vanishes at the turn of the lane, we feel that the merriment of the children has more poetically rendered the charm of the season than even the song of the birds.

There is in America no especial song of the festival, though children at the May parties of which we have spoken still keep up the "springing and leaping" which mediæval writers speak of as practised by them at this occasion. Popular songs are, however, still remembered in Europe, where their burden is, May has come! or, Welcome to May! Pleasing and lyric is the song of the "Trimazos," the lay of the processions of girls to which we have alluded, though its simplicity becomes more formal in our version of the provincial French:

It is the merry month of May, Winter has taken flight;
I could not keep my heart at home that bounded for delight:
And as I went, and as I came, I sang to the season gay,
It is the May, the merry May, the merry month of May!

E'en as I came the meadows by, the wheat-fields have I seen,
The hawthorn branches all a-flower, the oat-fields growing green;
O Trimazos!
It is the May, the merry May, the merry month of May!

Madam, I thank you for your coin, and for your courtesy;
It is for Mary and her Babe, and it is not for me:
But I will pray the Child for you to whom your gift is given,
That he return it you again more royally in heaven.

So, in the Vosges, young girls fasten a bough of laurel to the hat of a young man whom they may meet on the way, wishing

That God may give him health and joy,
And the love that he loves best:
Take the May, the lovely May.

They ask a gift, but not for themselves:

It shall be for the Virgin Mary,
So good and so dear:
Take the May, the lovely May.

Corresponding to the French song from which we have quoted is the English May carol, similarly sung from dwelling to dwelling:

Rise up the mistress of this house, with gold along your breast,
For the summer springs so fresh, green, and gay;
And if your body be asleep, we hope your soul's at rest,
Drawing near to the merry month of May.

God bless this house and harbor, your riches and your store,
For the summer springs so fresh, green, and gay;
We hope the Lord will prosper you, both now and evermore,
Drawing near to the merry month of May.

The frequent allusions of the earlier English poets to "doing May observance," or the "rite of May," show us how all ranks of society, in their time, were still animated by the spirit of those primitive faiths to which we owe much of our sensibility to natural impressions. Milton himself, though a Puritan, appears to approve the usages of the season, and even employs the ancient feminine impersonation of the maternal tenderness and bounty of nature, invoking the month:

The flow'ry May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.
Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire
Mirth and youth, and warm desire;
Woods and groves are of thy dressing,
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

Time, and the changes of taste, have at last proved too strong for the persistency of custom; the practices by which blooming youth expressed its sympathy with the bloom of the year have perished, taking with them much of the poetry of the season, and that inherited sentiment which was formerly the possession of the ignorant as well as of the cultivated class.

IV.
THE INVENTIVENESS OF CHILDREN.

In the days of childhood new,
When Time had years and ours were few,
Here on grassy fields at play,
Ran we this, the other way;
On this very meadow-ground
First violets found,
Where the cattle graze to-day.

Minnesinger, 13th Century.

The student of popular traditions is accustomed to recognize the most trifling incidents of a tale, or the phrases of a song, as an adaptation of some ancient or foreign counterpart, perhaps removed by an interval of centuries. It is the same with rhymes of the sort included in this collection, in which formulas of sport, current in our own day and in the New World, will be continually found to be the legacy of other generations and languages. Should we then infer that childhood, devoid of inventive capacity, has no resource but mechanical repetition?

We may, on the contrary, affirm that children have an especially lively imagination. Observe a little girl who has attended her mother for an airing in some city park. The older person, quietly seated beside the footpath, is half absorbed in revery; takes little notice of passers-by, or of neighboring sights or sounds, further than to cast an occasional glance which may inform her of the child's security. The other, left to her own devices, wanders contented within the limited scope, incessantly prattling to herself; now climbing an adjoining rock, now flitting like a bird from one side of the pathway to the other. Listen to her monologue, flowing as incessantly and musically as the bubbling of a spring; if you can catch enough to follow her thought, you will find a perpetual romance unfolding itself in her mind. Imaginary personages accompany her footsteps; the properties of a childish theatre exist in her fancy; she sustains a conversation in three or four characters. The roughnesses of the ground, the hasty passage of a squirrel, the chirping of a sparrow, are occasions sufficient to suggest an exchange of impressions between the unreal figures with which her world is peopled. If she ascends, not without a stumble, the artificial rockwork, it is with the expressed solicitude of a mother who guides an infant by the edge of a precipice; if she raises her glance to the waving green overhead, it is with the cry of pleasure exchanged by playmates who trip from home on a sunshiny day. The older person is confined within the barriers of memory and experience; the younger breathes the free air of creative fancy.

A little older grown, such a child becomes the inventor of legend. Every house, every hill in the neighborhood, is the locality of an adventure. Every drive includes spots already famous in supposed history, and passes by the abodes of fancied acquaintances. Into a land with few traditions the imagination of six years has introduced a whole cycle of romance.

If the family or vicinity contains a group of such minds, fancy takes outward form in dramatic performance. The school history is vitalized into reality; wars are waged and battles performed in a more extended version, while pins and beans signify squadrons and regiments. Romances are acted, tales of adventure represented with distribution of rôles. Thus, in a family of our acquaintance, the children treasured up wood-engravings, especially such as were cut from the illustrated journals: runaway horses, Indian chiefs, and trappers of the wilderness were at an especial premium. These they stored in boxes, encamped in different corners of the room, and performed a whole library of sensational tales. A popular piece set forth the destruction of the villain of the story by a shark, while navigating a catamaran. The separated beds of the sleeping-room represented the open planks of the raft; the gentlest and most compliant character personified the malefactor; and the shark swam between the bedsteads.

Where sports require or allow such freedom, the ingenuity of children puts to shame the dulness of later years, and many a young lady of twenty would find it impossible to construct the dialogue which eight summers will devise without an effort. It was a favorite amusement of two girls just entering their teens to conduct a boarding-school. The scholars and the teachers of the imaginary school were all named, and these characters were taken in dialogue by the little actors, each sustaining several perfectly well-defined parts. The pupils pursued their pleasures and their studies according to their several tastes; while their progress, their individual accomplishments and offences, were subsequently gravely discussed by the instructors, and the condition, prospects, and management of the institution talked over. Thus, hour after hour, without hesitation or weariness, the conversation proceeded, with the duo of friends for actors and audience!

Oftentimes, with young children, an outward support is required for fancy, an object to be mentally transformed. One set of little girls collected in the fall birch-leaves, changed to yellow, out of which alone they created their little nursery. Another party employed pins, which they inserted in a board, and called pin-fairies. By the aid of these, long dramatizations were performed, costumes devised, and palaces decorated, under regulations rigidly observed.

Such exercises of imagination are usually conducted in strict privacy, and unremarked, or not understood, by parents; but when the attention of the latter is directed to these performances, they are often astonished by the readiness they disclose, and are apt to mistake for remarkable talent what is only the ease of the winged fancy of youth, which flies lightly to heights where later age must laboriously mount step by step.

As infancy begins to speak by the free though unconscious combination of linguistic elements, so childhood retains in language a measure of freedom. A little attention to the jargons invented by children might have been serviceable to certain philologists. Their love of originality finds the tongue of their elders too commonplace; besides, their fondness for mystery requires secret ways of communication. They therefore often create (so to speak) new languages, which are formed by changes in the mother-speech, but sometimes have quite complicated laws of structure, and a considerable arbitrary element.

The most common of these, which are classified by young friends under the general name of gibberish, goes in New England by the name of "Hog Latin." It consists simply in the addition of the syllable ery, preceded by the sound of hard g, to every word. Even this is puzzling to older persons, who do not at first perceive that "Wiggery youggery goggery wiggery miggery" means only "Will you go with me!" Children sometimes use this device so perpetually that parents fear lest they may never recover the command of their native English. When it ceases to give pleasure, new dialects are devised. Certain young friends of ours at first changed the termination thus—"Withus yoovus govus withus meevus?" which must be answered, "Ivus withus govus withus yoovus;" the language, seemingly, not admitting a direct affirmative. The next step was to make a more complicated system by prefixing a u (or oo) sound with a vowel suffix. Thus, "Will you go with me to lunch?" would be "Uwilla uoa ugoa uwitha umea utoa uluncha?" But this contrivance, adopted by all the children of a neighborhood,[25] was attended with variations incapable of reduction to rule, but dependent on practice and instinct. The speech could be learned, like any other, only by experience; and a little girl assured us that she could not comprehend a single word until, in the course of a month, she had learned it by ear. She added, in regard to a particular dialect, that it was much harder than French, and that her brother had to think a great deal when he used it. The application of euphonic rules was more or less arbitrary. Thus, understand would be uery-uinste. The following will answer for a specimen of a conversation between a child and a nurse who has learned the tongue: "Uery uisy uemy uity?" "Up-stairs, on the screen in your room." The child had asked, "Where is my hat?"

A group of children living near Boston invented the cat language, so called because its object was to admit of free intercourse with cats, to whom it was mostly talked, and by whom it was presumed to be comprehended. In this tongue the cat was naturally the chief subject of nomenclature; all feline positions were observed and named, and the language was rich in such epithets, as Arabic contains a vast number of expressions for lion. Euphonic changes were very arbitrary and various, differing for the same termination; but the adverbial ending ly was always osh; terribly, tirriblosh. A certain percentage of words were absolutely independent, or at least of obscure origin. The grammar tended to Chinese or infantine simplicity; ta represented any case of any personal pronoun. A proper name might vary in sound according to the euphonic requirement of the different Christian-names by which it was preceded. There were two dialects, one, however, stigmatized as provincial.

This invention of language must be very common, since other cases have fallen under our notice in which children have composed dictionaries of such.

It would be strange if children who exhibit so much inventive talent did not contrive new games; and we find accordingly that in many families a great part of the amusements of the children are of their own devising. The earliest age of which the writer has authentic record of such ingenuity is two and a half years.

Considering the space which our Indian tribes occupy in the imagination of young Americans, it is remarkable that the red man has no place whatever in the familiar and authorized sports. On the other hand, savage life has often furnished material for individual and local amusements.

Near the country place of a family within our knowledge was a patch of brushwood containing about forty acres, and furnishing an admirable ground for savage warfare. Accordingly, a regular game was devised. The players were divided into Indians and hunters, the former uttering their war-cry in such dialect as youthful imagination regarded as aboriginal. The players laid ambushes for each other in the forest, and the game ended with the extermination of one party or the other. This warfare was regulated by strict rules, the presentation of a musket at a fixed distance being regarded as equivalent to death.

In a town of Massachusetts, some thirty years since, it was customary for the school-girls, during recess, to divide themselves into separate tribes. Shawls spread over tent-poles represented Indian lodges, and a girl always resorted to her allotted habitation. This was kept up for the whole summer, and carried out with such earnestness that girls belonging to hostile tribes, though otherwise perfectly good friends, would often not speak to each other for weeks, in or out of school.

In the same town was a community of "Friends," or "Quakers." It was the custom for children of these to play at meeting. Sitting about the room on a "First-day" gathering, one of them would be moved by the spirit, rise, and exhort in the sing-song tone common to the meeting-house. There was a regular formula for this amusement—a speech which the children had somewhere heard and found laughable: "My de-ar friends, I've been a thinking and a thinking and a thinking; I see the blinking and the winking; pennyroyal tea is very good for a cold."

A young lady of our acquaintance, as a child, invented a game of pursuit, which she called Spider and Fly. The Flies, sitting on the house-stairs, buzzed in and out of the door, where they were exposed to the surprise of the Spider. The children of the neighborhood still maintain the sport, which is almost the exact equivalent of a world-old game whose formula is given in our collection.

We need not go on to illustrate our thesis. But it remains true that the great mass of the sports here presented are not merely old, but have existed in many countries, with formulas which have passed from generation to generation. How are we to reconcile this fact with the quick invention we ascribe to children?

The simple reason why the amusements of children are inherited is the same as the reason why language is inherited. It is the necessity of general currency, and the difficulty of obtaining it, which restricts the variation of one and of the other. If a sport is familiar only to one locality or one set of children, it passes away as soon as the youthful fancy of that region grows weary of it. Besides, the old games, which have prevailed and become familiar by a process of natural selection, are usually better adapted to children's taste than any new inventions can be; they are recommended by the quaintness of formulas which come from the remote past, and strike the young imagination as a sort of sacred law. From these causes, the same customs have survived for centuries through all changes of society, until the present age has involved all popular traditions, those of childhood as of maturity, in a general ruin.

V.
THE CONSERVATISM OF CHILDREN.

Here, as girl's duty is, Timarete lays down her cymbals,
Places the ball that she loved, carries the net of her hair;
Maiden, and bride to be, her maids[26] to maid Artemis renders,
And with her favorites too offers their various wardrobe.

Greek Anthology.

As the light-footed and devious fancy of childhood, within its assigned limits, easily outstrips the grave progress of mature years, so the obedience of children is far more scrupulous not to overstep the limits of the path. It is a provision of nature, in order to secure the preservation of the race, that each generation should begin with the unquestioning reception of the precepts of that which it follows. No deputy is so literal, no nurse so Rhadamanthine, as one child left in charge of another. The same precision appears in the conduct of sports. The formulas of play are as Scripture, of which no jot or tittle is to be repealed. Even the inconsequent rhymes of the nursery must be recited in the form in which they first became familiar; as many a mother has learned, who has found the versions familiar to her own infancy condemned as inaccurate, and who is herself sufficiently affected by superstition to feel a little shocked, as if a sacred canon had been irreligiously violated.

The life of the past never seems so comprehensible, and the historic interval never so insignificant, as when the conduct and demeanor of children are in question. Of all human relations, the most simple and permanent one is that of parent and child. The loyalty which makes a clansman account his own interests as trifling in comparison with those of his chieftain, or subjects consider their own prosperity as included in their sovereign's, belongs to a disappearing society; the affection of the sexes is dependent, for the form of its manifestation, on the varying usages of nations; but the behavior of little children, and of their parents in reference to them, has undergone small change since the beginnings of history. Homer might have taken for his model the nursery of our own day, when, in the words of Achilles' rebuke to the grief of Patroclus, he places before us a Greek mother and her baby—

Patroclus, why dost thou weep, like a child too young to speak plainly,
A girl who runs after her mother, and cries in arms to be taken,
Catching hold of her garment, and keeping her back from her errand,
Looking up to her tearful, until she pauses and lifts her?

And the passage is almost too familiar to cite—

Hector the radiant spoke, and reached out his arms for the baby;
But the infant cried out, and hid his face in the bosom
Of his nurse gayly-girdled, fearing the look of his father,
Scared by the gleam of the bronze, and the helmet crested with horse-hair,
Dreading to see it wave from the lofty height of the forehead.

In the same manner, too, as the feelings and tastes of children have not been changed by time, they are little altered by civilization, so that similar usages may be acceptable both to the cultivated nations of Europe and to the simpler races on their borders.

It is natural, therefore, that the common toys of children should be world-old. The tombs of Attica exhibit dolls of classic or ante-classic time, of ivory or terra-cotta, the finer specimens with jointed arms or legs. Even in Greece, as it seems, these favorites of the nursery were often modelled in wax; they were called by a pet name, indicating that their owners stood to them in the relation of mamma to baby; they had their own wardrobes and housekeeping apparatus. The Temple of Olympian Zeus at Elis contained, says Pausanias, the little bed with which Hippodamia had played. But the usage goes much further back. Whoever has seen the wooden slats which served for the cheaper class of the dolls of ancient Egypt, in which a few marks pass for mouth, nose, and eyes, will have no difficulty in imagining that their possessors regarded them with maternal affection, since all the world knows that a little girl will lavish more tenderness on a stuffed figure than on a Paris doll, the return of affection being proportional to the outlay of imagination.

When Greek and Roman girls had reached an age supposed to be superior to such amusements, they were expected to offer their toys on the altar of their patroness, to whatever goddess might belong that function, Athene or Artemis, Diana or Venus Libitina. If such an act of devotion was made at the age of seven years, as alleged, one can easily understand that many a child must have wept bitterly over the sacrifice. To this usage refers the charming quatrain, a version of which we have set as the motto of our chapter.

Children's rattles have from the most ancient times been an important article of nursery furniture. Hollow balls containing a loose pebble, which served this purpose, belong to the most ancient classic times. These "rattles," however, often had a more artistic form, lyre-shaped with a moving plectrum; or the name was used for little separate metallic figures—"charms," as we now say—strung together so as to jingle, and worn in a necklace. Such were afterwards preserved with great care; in the comic drama they replace the "strawberry mark" by which the father recognizes his long-lost child. Thus, in the "Rudens" of Plautus, Palæstra, who has lost in shipwreck her casket, finds a fisherman in possession of it, and claims her property. Both agree to accept Dæmones, the unknown father of the maiden, as arbiter. Dæmones demands, "Stand off, girl, and tell me, what is in the wallet?" "Playthings."[27] "Right, I see them; what do they look like?" "First, a little golden sword with letters on it." "Tell me, what are the letters?" "My father's name. Then there is a two-edged axe, also of gold, and lettered; my mother's name is on the axe.... Then a silver sickle, and two clasped hands, and a little pig, and a golden heart, which my father gave me on my birthday." "It is she; I can no longer keep myself from embracing her. Hail, my daughter!"

In the ancient North, too, children played with figures of animals. The six-year-old Arngrim is described in a saga as generously making a present of his little brass horse to his younger brother Steinolf; it was more suitable to the latter's age, he thought.

The weapons of boys still preserve the memory of those used by primitive man. The bow and arrow, the sling, the air-gun, the yet more primeval club or stone, are skilfully handled by them. Their use of the top and ball has varied but little from the Christian era to the present day. It is, therefore, not surprising that many games are nearly the same as when Pollux described them in the second century.[28] Yet it interests us to discover that not only the sports themselves, but also the words of the formulas by which they are conducted, are in certain cases older than the days of Plato and Xenophon.[29]

We have already set forth the history contained in certain appellations of the song and dance. If the very name of the chorus has survived in Europe to the present day, so the character of the classic round is perpetuated in the ring games of modern children. Only in a single instance, but that a most curious one, have the words of a Greek children's round been preserved. This is the "tortoise-game," given by Pollux, and we will let his words speak for themselves:

"The tortoise is a girl's game, like the pot; one sits, and is called tortoise. The rest go about asking:

"O torti-tortoise, in the ring what doest thou?"

She answers:

"I twine the wool, and spin the fine Milesian thread."

The first again:

"Tell us, how was it that thy offspring died?"

To which she says:

"He plunged in ocean from the backs of horses white."

Our author does not tell us how the game ended; but from his comparison to the "pot-game"[30] we conclude that the tortoise immediately dives into the "ocean" (the ring) to catch whom she can.

This quaint description shows us that the game-formulas of ancient times were to the full as incoherent and obscure as those of our day frequently are. The alliterative name of the tortoise,[31] too, reminding us of the repetitions of modern nursery tales, speaks volumes for the character of Greek childish song.

Kissing games, also, were as familiar in the classic period as in later time; for Pollux quotes the Athenian comic poet Crates as saying of a coquette that she "plays kissing games in rings of boys, preferring the handsome ones."

It must be confessed, however, that we can offer nothing so graceful as the cry with which Greek girls challenged each other to the race, an exclamation which we may render, "Now, fairies!"[32]—the maidens assuming for the nonce the character of the light-footed nymphs of forest or stream.

Coming down to mediæval time, we find that the poets constantly refer to the life of children, with which they have the deepest sympathy, and which they invest with a bright poetry, putting later writers to shame by comparison. That early period, in its frank enjoyment of life, was not far from the spirit of childhood. Wolfram of Eschenbach represents a little girl as praising her favorite doll:

None is so fair
As my daughter there.

The German proverb still is "Happy as a doll."

It has been remarked how, in all times, the different sex and destiny of boys and girls are unconsciously expressed in the choice and conduct of their pleasures. "Women," says a writer of the seventeenth century, "have an especial fondness for children. That is seen in little girls, who, though they know not so much as that they are maids, yet in their childish games carry about dolls made of rags, rock them, cradle them, and care for them; while boys build houses, ride on a hobby-horse, busy themselves with making swords and erecting altars."

Like causes have occasioned the simultaneous disappearance of like usages in countries widely separated. In the last generation children still sang in our own towns the ancient summons to the evening sports—

Boys and girls, come out to play,
The moon it shines as bright as day;

and similarly in Provence, the girls who conducted their ring-dances in the public squares, at the stroke of ten sang:

Ten hours said,
Maids to bed.

But the usage has departed in the quiet cities of Southern France, as in the busy marts of America.

It is much, however, to have the pleasant memory of the ancient rules which youth established to direct its own amusement, and to know that our own land, new as by comparison it is, has its legitimate share in the lore of childhood, in considering which we overleap the barriers of time, and are placed in communion with the happy infancy of all ages. Let us illustrate our point, and end these prefatory remarks, with a version of the description of his own youth given by a poet of half a thousand years since—no mean singer, though famous in another field of letters—the chronicler Jean Froissart. He regards all the careless pleasures of infancy as part of the unconscious education of the heart, and the thoughtless joy of childhood as the basis of the happiness of maturity; a deep and true conception, which we have nowhere seen so exquisitely developed, and which he illuminates with a ray of that genuine genius which remains always modern in its universal appropriateness, when, recounting the sports of his own early life,[33] many of which we recognize as still familiar, he writes:

In that early childish day
I was never tired to play
Games that children every one
Love until twelve years are done;
To dam up a rivulet
With a tile, or else to let
A small saucer for a boat
Down the purling gutter float;
Over two bricks, at our will,
To erect a water-mill;
And in the end wash clean from dirt,
In the streamlet, cap and shirt.
We gave heart and eye together
To see scud a sailing feather;
After I was put to school,
Where ignorance is brought to rule,
There were girls as young as I;
These I courted, by-and-by,
Little trinkets offering—
A pear, an apple, or glass ring;
For their favor to obtain
Seemed great prowess to me then,
And, sober earnest, so it is.
And now and then it pleased us well
To sift dust through a piercèd shell
On our coats; or in time ripe,
To cut out a wheaten pipe.
In those days for dice and chess
Cared we busy children less
Than mud pies and buns to make,
And heedfully in oven bake
Of four bricks; and when came Lent,
Out was brought a complement
Of river-shells, from secret hold,
Estimated above gold,
To play away, as I thought meet,
With the children of our street;
And as they tossed a counter, I
Stood and shouted, "Pitch it high!"
When the moon was shining bright
We would play in summer night
Pince-merine; and time so passed,
I was more eager at the last
Than outset, and I thought it shame
When I was made to stop my game.
More to tell, we practised too
The sport entitled Queue loo loo,[34]
Hook, Trottot Merlot, Pebbles, Ball;
And when we had assembled all,
Pears, swiftly running; or were lief
To play at Engerrant the Thief.
Now and then, for a race-course,
Of a staff we made a horse,
And called him Gray; or, in knight's guise,
We put our caps on helmet-wise;
And many a time, beside a maid,
A mimic house of shells I made.
Upon occasions we would choose
The one who hit me I accuse,
Take Colin off; and by-and-by
Selected King who does not lie,
Ring, Prison-bars; or were content,
When in-doors, with Astonishment,
Oats, Scorn, or Riddles; nor forget
Replies, and Grasses, Cligne-musette,
Retreat, and Mule, and Hunt the Hare;
Leaping and Palm-ball had their share,
Salt Cowshorn, and Charette Michaut;
And oftentimes we chose to throw
Pebbles or pence against a stake;
Or small pits in the ground would make,
And play at nuts, which he who lost,
His pleasure bitterly was crossed.
To drive a top was my delight
From early morning until night;
Or to blow, single or double,
Through a tube a bright soap-bubble,
Or a batch of three or four,
To rejoice our eyes the more.
Games like these, and more beside,
Late and early have I plied.
Followed a season of concern;
Latin I was made to learn;
And if I missed, I was a dunce,
And must be beaten for the nonce.
So manners changed, as hands severe
Trained me to knowledge and to fear.
Yet lessons done, when I was free,
Quiet I could never be,
But fought with my own mates, and thus
Was vanquished or victorious;
And many a time it was my fate
To come home in a ragged state
And meet reproof and chastisement;
But, after all, 'twas pains misspent;
For, let a comrade come in sight,
That moment I had taken flight,
And none could hinder; in that hour
Pleasure unto me was power,
Though oft I found, as I find still,
The two inadequate to my will.
Thus I did the time employ—
So may Heaven give me joy—
That all things tended to my pleasure,
Both my labor and my leisure,
Being alert and being still;
Hours had I at my own will.
Then a wreath of violets,
To give maids for coronets,
Was to me of more account
Than the present of a count,
Twenty marks, would be to-day;
I had a heart content and gay,
And a soul more free and light
Than the verse may well recite.
So, to fashion form and feature,
Co-operated Love and Nature:
Nature made the body strong,
And forces that to Love belong,
Soft and generous the heart;
Truly, if in every part
Of the body soul did live,
I should have been sensitive!
Not a splendor upon earth
I esteemed so seeing-worth
As clustered violets, or a bed
Of peonies or roses red.
When approached the winter-time,
And out-of-doors was cold and rime,
No loss had I what to do,
But read romances old and new,
And did prefer, the rest above,
Those of which the theme was love,
Imagining, as on I went,
Everything to my content.
Thus, since infantine delight
Oft inclines the heart aright,
After his own living form
Love my spirit did inform,
And pleasure into profit turned;
For the fortitude I learned,
And the soul of high emprise,
Hath such merit in my eyes,
That its worth and preciousness
Words of mine cannot express.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Boston.

[2] See Nos. 40 and 58.

[3] See No. 21.

[4] See No. 2.

[5] See No. 1.

[6] More than three fourths of all children's games in the German collections are paralleled (it may be in widely varying forms) in the present volume. Allowing for the incompleteness of collections, the resemblance of French games is probably nearly as close. The case is not very different in Italy and Sweden, so far at least as concerns games of any dramatic interest. Not till we come to Russia, do we find anything like an independent usage. Taken altogether, our American games are as ancient and characteristic as any, and throw much light on the European system of childish tradition.

[7] See Nos. 150-153.

[8] Barley-break. See No. 101.

[9] No. 90.

[10] It must be remembered that in mediæval Europe, and in England till the end of the seventeenth century, a kiss was the usual salutation of a lady to a gentleman whom she wished to honor. The Portuguese ladies who came to England with the Infanta in 1662 were not used to the custom; but, as Pepys says, in ten days they had "learnt to kiss and look freely up and down." Kissing in games was, therefore, a matter of course, in all ranks.

[11] Mme. Élisabeth-Félicie Bayle-Mouillard, who wrote under this pseudonym, had in her day a great reputation as a writer on etiquette. Her "Manuel Complet de la Bonne Compagnie" reached six editions in the course of a few years, and was published in America in two different translations—at Boston in 1833, and Philadelphia in 1841.

[12] See Nos. 10 and 36.

[13] See No. 154, and note.

[14] Ballad, ballet, ball, from ballare, to dance.

[15] See Nos. 12-17.

[16] Yet there is no modern English treatise on the history of the ballad possessing critical pretensions. It is to the unselfish labors of an American—Professor Francis J. Child, of Harvard University—that we are soon to owe a complete and comparative edition of English ballads.

[17] In the country, in Massachusetts, Thanksgiving evening was the particular occasion for these games.

[18] The feast of Flora, says Pliny, in order that everything should flower.

[19] So in Southern France—

"Catherine, ma mie—reveille-toi, s'il vous plaît;
Regarde à ta fenêtre le mai et le bouquet."

[20] "On May-day eve, young men and women still continue to play each other tricks by placing branches of trees, shrubs, or flowers under each other's windows, or before their doors."—Harland, "Lancashire Folk-lore."

[21] The "Shepheards Calender" recites how, in the month of May,

Youngthes folke now flocken in every where,
To gather May-buskets and smelling brere;
And home they hasten the postes to dight,
And all the kirk-pillours eare day-light,
With hawthorn buds, and sweete eglantine,
And girlonds of roses, and soppes in wine.

"Sops in wine" are said to be pinks.

[22] See Nos. 23, 26, and 160.

[23] "In summer season howe doe the moste part of our yong men and maydes in earely rising and getting themselves into the fieldes at dauncing! What foolishe toyes shall not a man see among them!"—"Northbrooke's Treatise," 1577.

[24]

As I have seen the lady of the May
Set in an arbour (on a holy-day)
Built by the May-pole.

—Wm. Browne.

[25] In Cincinnati.

[26] The same Greek word, kora, signifies maiden and doll.

[27] Crepundia; literally, rattles.

[28] See Nos. 105 and 108.

[29] See Nos. 91, 92, and 93.

[30] "The pot-game—the one in the middle sits, and is called a pot; the rest tweak him, or pinch him, or slap him while running round; and whoever is caught by him while so turning takes his place." We might suppose the disconnected verse of the "tortoise-game" to be imitated, perhaps in jest, from the high-sounding phrases of the drama.

[31] "Cheli-chelone," torti-tortoise.

[32] "Phitta Meliades."

[33] Froissart's account of the school he attended reminds us of the American district school, and his narration has the same character of charming simplicity as his allusion to playing with the boys of our street.

[34] For the games here mentioned, compare note in Appendix.

[GAMES AND SONGS OF AMERICAN CHILDREN]

I.
LOVE-GAMES.

—Many a faire tourning,
Upon the grene gras springyng.

The Romaunt of the Rose.

No. 1.
Knights of Spain.

This ancient and interesting, now nearly forgotten, game was in the last generation a universal favorite in the United States, imported, no doubt, by the early settlers of the country; and was equally familiar, in numerous variations, through England and Scotland. It is not, however, the exclusive property of English-speaking peoples, but current under a score of forms throughout Europe—from Latin France, Italy, and Spain, to Scandinavian Iceland, from the Finns of the Baltic coast to the Slavs of Moravia. Its theme is courtship; but courtship considered according to ancient ideas, as a mercantile negotiation. To "buy" a bride was the old Norse expression for marriage, and in a similar sense is to be understood the word "sold" in our rhyme. The frankly mercenary character of the original transaction ceasing to be considered natural, it was turned into a jest or satire in Sweden and Scotland. The present song assumed all the grace and courtesy characteristic of the mediæval English ballad, while a primitive form survived in Iceland; and a later outgrowth (our No. 3) represented the whole affair as one of coquetry instead of bargaining, substituting, for the head of the house or the mother, the bride herself as the negotiator.

Our first version shows the form of the game as played in New York in the early part of the century.

On a sofa, or row of chairs, a mother, with her daughters on either side, seated. Advance three suitors.

"Here come three lords out of Spain,
A-courting of your daughter Jane."

"My daughter Jane is yet too young,
To be ruled by your flattering tongue."

"Be she young, or be she old,
'Tis for the price she may be sold.

"So fare you well, my lady gay,
We must turn another way."

"Turn back, turn back, you Spanish knight,
And scour your boots and spurs so bright."

"My boots and spurs they cost you nought,
For in this land they were not bought.

"Nor in this land will they be sold,
Either for silver or for gold.

"So fare you well, my lady gay,
We must turn another way."

"Turn back, turn back, you Spanish knight,
And choose the fairest in your sight."

"I'll not take one nor two nor three,
But pray, Miss [Lucy], walk with me."

The Spanish knight takes the girl named by the hand, and marches off with her. Walking round the room, he returns, saying,

"Here comes your daughter safe and sound,
In her pocket a thousand pound,

"On her finger a gay gold ring—
I bring your daughter home again."

In Philadelphia the game had a peculiar ending, which, however, as we shall see, preserved, though in a corrupt form, an ancient trait:

"Here comes your daughter safe and sound,
In her pocket a thousand pound,

"On her finger a gay gold ring:
Will you take your daughter in?"

"No!"

The girl then runs away, the mother pursuing her. The Spanish knight catches her, and brings her back, saying,

"Here comes your daughter safe and sound,
In her pocket no thousand pound,

On her finger no gay gold ring,
Will you take your daughter in?"

"Yes!"

The daughter then once more flies, and the Spanish knight has to catch her.

The following is a New England version:

"We are three brethren from Spain,
Come to court your daughter Jane."

"My daughter Jane is yet too young
To be courted by your flattering tongue."

"Be she young, or be she old,
It is for gold she must be sold.

Then fare ye well, my lady gay,
I must return another day."

"Come back, come back, you Spanish knight,
Your boots and spurs shine very bright."

"My boots and spurs they count you nought,
For in this town they were not bought."

"Come back, come back, you Spanish knight,
And choose the fairest in your sight."

"This is too black, and that is too brown,
And this is the fairest in the town."

The only part of the country, so far as we know, in which the game now survives is the neighborhood of Cincinnati, where it is still played in a reduced but original form:

"Here comes a knight, a knight of Spain,
To court your daughter, lady Jane."

"My lady Jane, she is too young,
To be controlled by flattering tongue."

"Be she young or be she old,
Her beauty's fair, she must be sold."

"Go back, go back, you Spanish man,
And choose the fairest in the land."

"The fairest one that I can see,
Is [Annie Hobart] to walk with me."

The game now proceeds, "Here come two knights," then with three, four, etc., till all the players are mated.[35]

It will be proper to add some account of the comparative history of this curious game. The English and Scotch versions, though generally less well preserved, correspond to our American. But we find a more primitive type in Iceland, where it is, or a few years ago was, an amusement of winter evenings, played not by children, but by men and women, in a form which indicates a high antiquity. The women ask the men, as these advance, what they desire? The latter reply, "a maid," that is, wife. The inquiry now is, what will they give? It is answered, stone. This tender is scornfully refused, and the suitors retire in dudgeon, but return to raise their offer, and at last proffer gold, which is accepted, and the controversy ends in a dance.[36]

Curiously enough, modern Scotland retains this song in nearly all the rude simplicity of the Icelandic just referred to; though the negotiation, instead of being taken as a matter of course, is turned into a satire, being treated as the endeavor of a rich old bachelor to purchase a wife.

In the stewartry of Kirkendbright, says Chambers, Janet jo is a dramatic entertainment among young rustics on winter evenings. A youth, disguised as an old bachelor, enters the room bonnet in hand, bowing, and declaring that "he has come to court Janet jo." The goodwife then demands, "What'll ye gie for Janet jo?" He responds, a "peck of siller," but is told, "Gae awa', ye auld carle!" He retires, but soon returns, and increases his offer, which is less scornfully rejected, until he proffers "three pecks of gowd," which is accepted with the words—

"Come ben beside Janet jo,
Janet jo, Janet jo,
Ye're welcome to Janet jo,
Janet, my jo."

The affair then ends in kissing. A comparison of details (such as the diminishing scorn of the bargainer, and chagrin of the suitors at each rejection) leaves no doubt that the Icelandic and Scotch forms of the game were once (but many centuries since) identical.

The German versions are numerous, but corrupt, and less ancient and characteristic. In one of the most spirited the mother assigns as a reason for refusing the suitor, that

Her tresses are not braided,
Her wedding-gown not done.

Similarly, we find in an English fragment,

My mead's not made, my cake's not baked,
And you cannot have my daughter Jane.

There is a French form, not otherwise especially interesting, which resembles our No. 3.[37]

More striking than the preceding, and abounding in singular correspondences with the first three numbers of our own collection, is the Italian version, as played in Venice. In this game, one of the rows is composed of a boy, who represents the head of the house, and five or six girls who stand at his right and left. The other row is formed by the ambassador, whose suite consists of boys and girls. These last advance towards the first row, singing, "The ambassador is come," then, retreating, sing a chorus, "Olà, olà, olà." The conversation then proceeds in a rhythmical way between the two rows as follows:

The "ambassador" advances and takes the girl by the hand; then, as if changing his mind, rejects her, saying as he returns—

The ambassador then takes by the hand the girl, who is presented to him by the head of the house; the two files unite to form a circle, and the bride receives the general congratulations of the company, who clap their hands, courtesy, and sing,[38] as in the pretty English equivalent—

And the bells will ring, and the birds will sing,
And we'll all clap hands together.

In Spain, the game is known as the "Embassy of the Moorish King." The "King of the Moors" is seated on the ground, with crossed legs, his attendants about him. The "ambassador" makes three steps forward, and demands one of his daughters. The king replies, "If I have them, I have them not to give away; of the bread which I eat, they shall eat as well."

The ambassador withdraws angry: "In discontent I go from the king's palace." But the king, repenting, calls after him—

"Turn thee, knight, come, turn thee hither,
The most fair I'll give to thee—
The most lovely and the sweetest,
Sweetest rose upon the tree."

The ambassador crosses hands with one of his train to make a seat, on which the bride is placed in triumph, singing—

"Thus I take her for her marriage,
Spouse and wedded wife to be."

The king addresses them on departure—

"Listen, knight, I do entreat thee,
Use to her all courtesy."

And the ambassadors reply—

"She, on throne of splendor seated,
Shall be shining to behold,
She shall lodge within a palace,
She shall dress in pearls and gold."

It will thus be seen that the three knights originally represent not suitors, but envoys. If we remember that marriage, in some simple countries, is still conducted through intermediaries, whose duty it is to argue, chaffer, and dispute, before coming to the decision all along intended, we shall see reason to believe that from a form representing more or less literally the usages of primitive society have sprung in the course of time a multitude of confused representations, colored by later tastes and feelings.

The spirit and substance of the courteous and chivalric English rhyme cannot be later than the fourteenth century; the identity and primitive rudeness of the song in Iceland, Scotland (and, we shall presently add, Virginia), supposes an earlier date; while even then we have to bridge the gap between these forms and the Italian. We may, therefore, be tolerably sure that the first diffusion of the game in Europe dates far back into the Middle Age.

No. 2.
Three Kings.

This antique rhyme, which comes to us from West Virginia, is a rude and remarkable variety of the preceding game, but quite unlike any English version hitherto printed.

We find a singular and apparently connected equivalent in the Färöe isles. In the form of the dialogue there in use, as in the present game, the suitor is presented in successively higher characters, as a thrall, smith, and so on, until he is finally accepted as a prince. The Italian song has shown us a similar usage. Thus the surf-beaten rocks of the North Atlantic, with their scanty population of fishermen and shepherds, whose tongue is a dialect of the ancient Norse speech, are linked by the golden chain (or network) of tradition with the fertile vales of the Alleghenies, and the historic lagoons of Venice.

The corrupt ending, too, compared with the Philadelphia version already cited, and with the Venetian game, is seen to rest on an ancient basis. The children, having forgotten the happy close, and not understanding the haggling of the suitors, took the "three kings" for bandits.

On one side of the room a mother with her daughters. On the other three wooers, who advance.

"Here come three soldiers three by three,
To court your daughter merrily;
Can we have a lodging, can we have a lodging,
Can we have a lodging here to-night?"

"Sleep, my daughter, do not wake—
Here come three soldiers, and they sha'n't take;
They sha'n't have a lodging, they sha'n't have a lodging,
They sha'n't have a lodging here to-night."

"Here come three sailors three by three,
To court your daughter merrily;
Can we have a lodging," etc.

"Sleep, my daughter, do not wake—
Here come three sailors and they sha'n't take;
They sha'n't have a lodging," etc.

"Here come three tinkers three by three,
To court your daughter merrily;
Can we have a lodging," etc.

"Sleep, my daughter, do not wake—
Here come three tinkers and they sha'n't take;
They sha'n't have a lodging," etc.

"Here come three kings, three by three,
To court your daughter merrily;
Can we have a lodging," etc.

"Wake, my daughter, do not sleep—
Here come three kings, and they shall take;
They shall have a lodging, they shall have a lodging,
They shall have a lodging here to-night."

(To the kings)—

"Here is my daughter safe and sound,
And in her pocket five hundred pound,
And on her finger a plain gold ring,
And she is fit to walk with the king."

(The daughter goes with the kings; but they are villains in disguise: they rob her, push her back to her mother, and sing)—

"Here is your daughter not safe and sound,
And in her pocket not five hundred pound,
And on her finger no plain gold ring,
And she's not fit to walk with the king."

(The mother pursues the kings, and tries to catch and beat them).

Charlestown, W. Va.

No. 3.
Here Comes a Duke.

This rhyme is only a later development of the same game. The suitor is now made to address himself directly to his mistress, and the mercenary character of the previous transaction is replaced by coquetry. Our New England song loses nothing by comparison with the pretty Scotch.

A company of little girls sit in a row. A little girl from the middle of the room goes dancing up to the first one in the row, singing,

"Here comes a duke a-roving,
Roving, roving,
Here comes a duke a-roving,
With the ransy, tansy, tea!
With the ransy, tansy, tario!
With the ransy, tansy, tea!
Pretty fair maid, will you come out,
Will you come out, will you come out,
To join us in our dancing?"

Little girl answers,

"No."

Suitor steps backward, singing,

"Naughty girl,[39] she won't come out,
She won't come out, she won't come out,
To join us in our dancing."

Suitor advances as before. The answer now is,

"Yes."

These two now retire, singing together,

"Now we've got the flowers of May,
The flowers of May, the flowers of May,
To join us in our dancing."

They join hands and call out the next one in the row; thus the play goes on until the last is selected, when they form a ring, dance, and sing,

"Now we've got the flowers of May,
The flowers of May, the flowers of May,
To join us in our dancing."

Concord, Mass.

A vulgarized form of the same game is common through the Middle States:

The pretended quarrel between intermediaries has here become a dispute of the principals.[40]

Finally, in the streets of New York the dialogue is made unrecognizable—

The child then selects a partner, when the rest sing,

"Open the gates and let the bride out," etc.;

and the couple pass under lifted hands, circle the ring, and similarly reenter, to the words,

"Open the gates and let the bride in," etc.

We have thus a curious example of the way in which an apparently meaningless game, which might be supposed the invention of the gamins of the street, is, in fact, a degenerate form of the ancient poetry, which was brimful of grace, courtesy, and the joy of existence.

For a purpose presently to be mentioned, we must cite the corresponding Scotch rhyme, given by Chambers:

A dis, a dis, a green grass,
A dis, a dis, a dis;
Come all ye pretty fair maids,
And dance along with us.

For we are going a-roving,
A-roving in this land;
We'll take this pretty fair maid,
We'll take her by the hand.

Ye shall get a duke, my dear,
And ye shall get a drake;
And ye shall get a young prince,
A young prince for your sake.

And if this young prince chance to die,
Ye shall get another;
The bells will ring, and the birds will sing,
And we'll all clap hands together.

No. 4.
Tread, Tread the Green Grass.

Tread, tread the green grass,
Dust, dust, dust;
Come all ye pretty fair maids
And walk along with us.

If you be a fair maid,
As I suppose you be,
I'll take you by the lily-white hand
And lead you across the sea.

Philadelphia.

With this musical call to the dance, it was common, a generation since, for girls in this town to begin the evening dances on the green, singing as they marched in couples. The "dust" of the rhyme is a corruption. Comparing it with the Scotch song previously quoted, we do not doubt that it represents the Scotch (in other words, old English) adist, the opposite of ayont, meaning this way, come hither. We ought probably therefore to read,

Tread, tread the green grass,
Adist, adist, adist.

This song was no mere dance of rustics; the children at least kept up the usage of the day when a pleasing popular poetry was the heritage of all ranks. The spirit of the strain carries us back to that "carolling" of ladies which was, in the time of Chaucer, no less than the gay green of the meadow or the melody of the birds, an accompaniment of summer.

No. 5.
I'll Give to You a Paper of Pins.

This pretty and interesting, hitherto imprinted, children's song is more or less familiar throughout the Middle States. We have heard it with many variations from persons of all classes and ages. It may often be listened to in the upper part of the city of New York, as it is sung (with a mere apology for a melody) by three or four girls, walking with arms entwined, or crooned by mere infants seated on the casks which, in the poorer quarters, often encumber the sidewalk.

There are also English and Scotch versions, generally inferior as regards poetical merit and antiquity of language. The English form, however, seems to contain the primitive idea, where the wooer appears as a prince, who by splendid presents overcomes the objections of a lady. This mercenary character being repugnant to modern taste, the Scotch rhyme represents the suitor as the Evil One in person; while in the United States the hero is, in his turn, made to cast off the avaricious fair, or else the lady to demand only love for love.

The numerous couplets of the American rhyme are completely in the ballad style. A "paper of pins" is substituted for a "pennorth of pins." The "easy-chair" is modern, but the verse itself ancient, combing golden hair being a world-old occupation of beauties. The gown "trimmed with golden thread," or "set off with a golden crown," refers to the attire of olden times. The mediæval bride wore a crown on the head and flowing hair; a costume also mentioned in old ballads as the usual dress of a demoiselle of rank arrayed for the dance.

"I'll give to you a paper of pins,
And that's the way my love begins;
If you will marry me, me, me,
If you will marry me."

"I don't accept your paper of pins,
If that's the way your love begins;
For I won't marry you, you, you,
For I won't marry you."

"I'll give to you an easy-chair,
To sit in and comb your golden hair.

"I'll give to you a silver spoon,
To feed your babe in the afternoon.

"I'll give to you a dress of green,
To make you look like any queen.[41]

"I'll give to you the key of my heart,
For you to lock and never to part.

"I'll give to you the key of my chest,
For you to have money at your request."

"I do accept the key of your chest,
For me to have money at my request;
And I will marry you, you, you,
And I will marry you."

"Ha, ha, ha, money is all,
And I won't marry you at all;
For I won't marry you, you, you,
For I won't marry you."

This is from a New York child; our next version is from Connecticut:

"Oh, miss, I'll give you a paper of pins,
If you will tell me how love begins:
If you will marry, marry, marry,
If you will marry me."

"I'll not accept your paper of pins,
And I won't tell you how love begins;
For I won't marry, marry, marry,
For I won't marry you."

"O miss, I'll give you a coach and six,
Every horse as black as pitch.

"O miss, I'll give you a red silk gown,
With gold and laces hanging round.

"O miss, I'll give you a little gold bell,
To ring for the waiter[42] when you are not well.

"O miss, I'll give you the key to my heart,
That we may lock and never part.

"O miss, I'll give you the key to my chest,
That you may have money at your request."

"I will accept the key of your chest,
That I may have money at my request."

"Ah, I see, money is all,
Woman's love is none at all;
And I won't marry, marry, marry,
And I won't marry you."

Finally, we have a variation with a more tender conclusion:

"Will you have a paper of pins?
For that's the way my love begins—
And will you marry me, me, me,
And will you marry me?"

"No, I'll not have a paper of pins,
If that's the way your love begins."

"Will you have a little lap-dog,
Who may follow you abroad?

"Will you have a coach and four,
Footman behind and footman before?

"Will you have a dress of red,
All trimmed round with golden thread?

"Will you have a satin gown,
All set off with a golden crown?

"Will you have the key to my chest,
To draw out gold at your request?

"Will you have the key to my heart,
That we may love and never part?"

"Yes, I will have the key to your heart,
That we may love and never part,
And I will marry you, you, you,
And I will marry you."

The same idea is contained in a song originally Scotch, but which comes to us (through an Irish medium) from Pennsylvania:

"Will you come to the Highland braes,
Bonny lassie, Highland lassie?
Will you come to the Highland braes,
My bonny Highland lassie?"

The reply is, "Na, na, it will not dee, bonnie laddie," etc.: when the wooer gradually increases his offers:

"I will give you a golden comb,
If you will be mine and never roam;"

and finally inquires,

"Will you go to the kirk with me,
There to be my wedded wife?"

which is eagerly accepted:

"And them's the words away to town,
And I will get my wedding-gown."

No. 6.
There She Stands, a Lovely Creature.

This pretty song has been recited to us by informants of the most cultivated class, and, on the other hand, we have seen it played as a round by the very "Arabs of the street," in words identically the same. It is an old English song, which has been fitted for a ring-game by the composition of an additional verse, to allow the selection of a partner.

"There she stands, a lovely creature,
Who she is, I do not know;
I have caught her for her beauty,—
Let her answer, yes or no.

"Madam, I have gold and silver,
Lady, I have houses and lands,
Lady, I have ships on the ocean,
All I have is at thy command."

"What care I for your gold and silver,
What care I for your houses and lands,
What care I for your ships on the ocean—
All I want is a nice young man."

New York.

No. 7.
Green Grow the Rushes, O!

In former times, the amusements of young people at their winter-evening gatherings consisted almost entirely of "playing games." On such occasions the following rhyme was used (in eastern Massachusetts) about the beginning of the century, to select partners for the ring. Chairs were placed in a circle, and the players of one sex seated, so as to leave alternate vacant places, for which they chose occupants, singing—

"Green grow the rushes, O!
Green grow the rushes, O!
He who will my true love be,
Come and sit by the side of me."

Those waiting to be selected sang,

"Pick and choose, but choose not me,
Choose the fairest you can see."

This dialogue was repeated for each player until all were taken in, which, if the party was numerous, of necessity took a long time.

No. 8.
The Widow with Daughters to Marry.

A child, representing a mother, is followed by a file of daughters, each grasping the frock of the girl in front.

There comes a poor widow from Barbary-land,[43]
With all her children in her hand;
One can brew, and one can bake,
And one can make a wedding-cake;
Pray take one,
Pray take two,
Pray take one that pleases you.[44]

Philadelphia.

The "poor widow" is also represented as having only one daughter left.

Sister, O Phoebe, how happy we be,
As we go under the juniper-tree!
We'll put on our night-caps to keep our heads warm,
And two or three kisses will do us no harm—
Will do us no harm, Io!
I am a poor widow, a-marching around,
And all of my daughters are married but one;
So rise up my daughter, and kiss whom you please,
And kiss whom you please, Io!

Philadelphia.

Another old version of this round:

I am a rich widow, I live all alone,
I have but one daughter, and she is my own;
Go, daughter, go choose, go choose your one,
Go choose a good one, or else choose you none.

New York.

Finally, we have the modern corruption of the street, which, however, shows us the manner of playing:

A child stands in the ring, as the mother. The daughter reclines as if asleep, her head resting on her hands, till the words, rise up.

Here stands a poor widow a-walking around,
Io! Io! Io!
So put on the night-cap to keep her head warm,
To keep her head warm, Io!
So rise up my daughter, and kiss whom you please,
And kiss whom you please, Io!

New York.

The widow with daughters to marry is a European celebrity. The titles rich and poor, moreover, in this and the last number, are not meaningless, but show that two independent characters have been united in one. In the original European game, which we have not encountered in an English form, there is both a rich and a poor mother; the latter begs away, one by one, the daughters of the former, until she has secured all. The present round and the preceding are only reductions, or adaptations to the dance, of this more ancient and dramatic game. Once more, the game of the rich and poor mothers, though centuries old, and existing in many European tongues, is itself but an outgrowth of a still more ancient childish drama, which has given birth to innumerable sports, dances, and songs, exhibiting very different external characteristics all over Europe, but of which primitive and complete versions at present seem to exist only in America.[45]

No. 9.
Philander's March.

This rhyme has been familiar throughout the New England States. Some of our older readers will remember how the doors of all the apartments of an old-fashioned mansion, with its great chimney in the centre, would be thrown open at an evening party, and the children march through the house, and up and down the staircase, singing the familiar air—

Come, Philanders,[46] let's be a-marching,
Every one choose from his heartstrings;[47]
Choose your true love now or never,
And be sure you choose no other.
O, my dear——, how I do love you!
Nothing on earth do I prize above you!
With a kiss now let me greet you,
And I will never, never leave you.

Plymouth, Mass. (about 1800).

Another version:

Come, Philander, let us be a-marching,
From the ranks there's no deserting,
Choose your own, your own true lover,
See that you don't choose any other;
Now farewell, dear love, farewell,
We're all a-marching, so farewell.

Deerfield, Mass.

Why, of all the names of the Damon and Sylvia class, Philander,[48] which, according to derivation, should mean fondness for the male sex, came to be a proverbial expression for an amorous person, and contributed to the English language a verb (to philander) we cannot say. Children's intelligence made wild work of the word. A New England variation was, "Come, Lysanders;" and in Pennsylvania, on the Maryland border, the first line has been ingeniously distorted into "Cumberland city-town-boys" marching! Cumberland being a town in the latter state.

No. 10.
Marriage.

(1.) By this name was known in Massachusetts, at the beginning of the century, an elaborate dance (for such, though practised in a Puritan community, it really was) which has a very decided local flavor.

Partners having been chosen, the girl says—

"Come, my dearest partner, and join both heart and hand;
You want you a wife, and I want me a man.
So married we will be, if we can agree,
We'll march down together, so happy are we."

The partners now separate, the lad saying—

"Now I must part, and leave you alone,
So fare you well, my true love, till I return."

The maid replies—

"I mourn, I mourn, for that is the cry,
I'm left all alone, and I'm sure I shall die."

But, after walking round, rejoins her partner, who welcomes her—

"Oh, here comes my love, and how do you do?
And how have you been since I parted with you?"

The pair then address the row—

"There is a scene secure from all harm,
Please to give us joy by the raising of the arm."

The other players, who stand each lad opposite his lass, raise arms, and the couple walk down under the arch so formed, pausing at the foot—

"Now we are married, and never more to part,
Please to give a kiss from the bottom of the heart."

And the game proceeds with the next couple.

Scituate, Mass. (about 1800).

(2.) No better as respects poetry, but with more evidence of old English origin, is the following game, in which couples circle in a ring about two chairs, from time to time changing partners. We have not been clearly informed of the way of playing, but presume that at the time of the change the youth or girl in the ring must select a mate.

"On the green carpet here we stand,
Take your true love in your hand;
Take the one whom you profess
To be the one whom you love best."

A change of partners.

"Very well done, said Johnny Brown,
Is this the way to London town?
Stand ye here, stand ye there,
Till your true love doth appear."

A mate is finally chosen, and the ring sings—

"Oh, what a beautiful choice you've made!
Don't you wish you'd longer stayed?
[Give her a kiss, and send her away,
And tell her she can no longer stay."[49]]

Salem, Mass.

The "green carpet" is, of course, the grass, on which the village dance proceeds in the summer-time,[50] and the remains of an ancient "carol" appear in the corrupt rhyme.

(3.) To the game of Marriage, as played in France and Italy, the following closely corresponds:

A boy and girl having been chosen by singing our No. 17, and standing in the centre of the ring, the game proceeds, with imitative motion and gesture—

"Row the boat! Row the boat!
Let the boat stand!
I think —— —— is a handsome young man;
I think —— —— is as handsome as he,
And they shall be married, if they can agree."[51]

Such short rhymes are not used independently, but joined to some fragment of a ballad, which they serve to turn into a game, as may be seen in our No. 12.

(4.) We take this opportunity to give one or two other familiar examples of kissing rounds:

Had I as many eyes as the stars in the skies,
And were I as old as Adam,
I'd fall on my knees, and kiss whom I please,
Your humble servant, madam.

In Boston, half a century since, this ran—

As many wives as the stars in the skies,
And each as old as Adam, etc.

In Georgia, at the present day—

Many, many stars are in the skies,
And each as old as Adam, etc.

(5.) The following is yet more inane, yet it furnishes a curious example of correspondence—

"—— —— languishes."
"For whom?"
"For —— ——."

This is not much more crude than the French equivalent.[52]

(6.) We may add that the familiar American game, known as "Pillow," or "Pillows and Keys" (why keys?), in which a player kneels on a pillow and solicits a kiss, is no doubt a descendant of the "Cushion Dance," alluded to by old dramatists.

FOOTNOTES:

[35] The game, half a century since, was played by boys as well as girls. New England variations are numerous; thus for the last line of verse 4, "I'll turn my face another way." For verse 7, "Go through the kitchen and through the hall, and choose the fairest one of all." A New York variety puts the last words into the mouth of the bride: "I'm so happy that I could sing."

[36] So in an English variety:

"I will give you pots and pans, I will give you brass,
I will give you anything for a pretty lass."
"No."
"I will give you gold and silver, I will give you pearl,
I will give you anything for a pretty girl."
"Take one, take one, the fairest you may see."

Halliwell, "Nursery Rhymes."

[37] The ending is like ours—

"Prenez la plus jolie de toutes."
"Voilà la plus jolie de toutes."

[38]

Eco la Nina al campo—fra tanti suoni e canti;
Eco la Nina al campo—olà, olà, olà.
Faciamo un bel' inchino—profondo al suo rispeto;
Faciamo un bel' inchino—olà, olà, olà.

[39] A New Hampshire fragment has here,

"The scornful maid, she won't come out,"

which seems more genuine.

[40] An English variety, printed a century since in "Gammer Gurton's Garland," has as the first line of the refrain,

My-a-dildin, my-a-daldin;

and as the alternate line,

Lily white and shine-a.

The last phrase comes to us as the fragment of a game in Massachusetts, about 1800. We are reminded of the songs of Autolycus in "A Winter's Tale," "with such delicate burdens of dildos and fadings."

[41] Here verses may be improvised at pleasure; for instance, said the little reciter,

"I'll give to you a dress of black,
A green silk apron and a white cap,
If you will marry," etc.

[42] In the English version "to ring up your maidens."

[43] Variation: "Here comes an old woman from Sunderland," or "Cumberland."

[44] In Canada the game goes:

J'ai tant d'enfants à marier!
J'ai tant d'enfants à marier!
Grand Dieu! je n' sais comment
Pouvoir en marier tant.
Mademoiselle, on parle à vous;
On dit que vous aimez beaucoup;
Si c'est vrai que vous aimez,
Entrez dans la danse, entrez!

[45] See Note; also No. 154, and Note.

[46] Usually plural.

[47] Or, dialectically, "every one his true lover sarching."

[48] "Were his men like him, he'd command a regiment of Damons and Philanders."—"Two Faces under One Hood," by Thomas Dibdin.

[49] From another version.

[50] As Lodge has it—

Footing it featlie on the grassie ground,
These damsels circling with their brightsome faires—

[51] Fifty years ago the corresponding French game was still played as a "game of society"—

Eh! qui marirons-nous?
Mademoiselle, ce sera vous:
Entrez dans la danse;
J'aimerai qui m'aimera, j'aimerai qui m'aime.

The round then proceeds—

Eh! qui lui donnerons-nous?
Mon beau monsieur, ce sera vous.
Amans, embrassez-vous, etc.

[52]

"Qui est-ce qui languira?"
"Ce sera —— —— qui languira."
"—— —— la guerira."

French game in Cambrai.

II.
HISTORIES.

A fresh wreath of crimson roses
Round my forehead twine will I;
I will wear them for a garland,
Wear them till the day I die.

I desire that in my coffin
May be room enough for three;
For my father, for my mother,
And my love to lie with me.

Afterwards above the coffin
We will let a flower grow;
In the morning we will plant it,
In the evening it will blow.

Wayfarers will pause demanding,
"Whose may be the flower there?"
"'Tis the flower of Rosetina,
She who died of love's despair."

Round of Girls in Venice.

No. 11.
Miss Jennia Jones.

This childish drama has been familiar in the Middle States since the memory of the oldest inhabitant. The Scotch equivalent shows that the heroine's name was originally Jenny jo. "Jo" is an old English word for sweetheart, probably a corruption of joy, French joie, used as a term of endearment. Jenny my joy has thus been modernized into Miss Jennia (commonly understood to be a contraction for Virginia) Jones!

The story is originally a love-tale. The young lady, like Rosetina in the Venetian song (a part of which we have translated above) dies of blighted affection and the prohibition of cruel parents. The suitor, in America, is represented by feminine friends. Yet the drama has lived; a proof that in singing and playing love-tales the children rather imitated their elders than followed a necessity of their own nature.

From various versions we select the following:

A mother, seated. Miss Jennia Jones stands behind her chair, or reclines on her lap as if lying sick. A dancer advances from the ring.

"I've come to see Miss Jennia Jones,
Miss Jennia Jones, Miss Jennia Jones—
I've come to see Miss Jennia Jones,
And how is she to-day?"

"She's up-stairs washing,
Washing, washing—
She's up-stairs washing,
You cannot see her to-day."

The questions are repeated to the same air for every day of the week, and the reply is that Miss Jennia Jones is ironing, baking, or scrubbing. She is then represented as sick, as worse, and finally as dead, which announcement is received with signs of deep grief. The dancers of the ring then discuss the costume in which she shall be buried:

"What shall we dress her in,
Dress her in, dress her in;
What shall we dress her in—
Shall it be blue?"

"Blue is for sailors,
So that will never do."

"What shall we dress her in,
Shall it be red?"

"Red is for firemen,
So that will never do."

"Pink is for babies,
So that will never do."

"Green is forsaken,
So that will never do."

"Black is for mourners,
So that will never do."

"White is for dead people,
So that will just do."

"Where shall we bury her?
Under the apple-tree."

After the ceremonies of burial have been completed, the ghost of Miss Jennia Jones suddenly arises—

"I dreamt I saw a ghost last night,
Ghost last night, ghost last night—
I dreamt I saw a ghost last night,
Under the apple-tree!"

The ring breaks up, and flies with shrieks, and the one caught is to represent Miss Jennia Jones.

An interesting feature of our game is the symbolism of color. "Each of these colors," says an informant, "which denoted a profession, also typified a feeling. Thus, blue, which is said to be for sailors, suggested constancy."

In one version of the game, which comes to us from an Irish source, green is for grief, red for joy, black for mourning, and white for death. In another such version, white is for angels, and is the chosen color; a reading we would willingly adopt, as probably more ancient, and as expressing the original seriousness of the whole, and the feeling which the color of white symbolized. In more common Irish phrase, green is for Irish, yellow for Orangemen. In Cincinnati, purple is for kings and queens, gray for Quakers. In a Connecticut variation, yellow is for glad folks.

An English saying corresponds closely to the significance of colors in our game:

Blue is true, yellow is jealous,
Green is forsaken, red is brazen,
White is love, and black is death.

A variation from West Virginia makes the question apply to the dress of the mourners, not of the deceased: "What shall we dress in?" "In our red, in our blue," etc., are rejected, and the decision is, "In our white."

Such imitations of burial ceremonies are not merely imaginative. It was once the custom for the girls of a village to take an active part in the interment of one of their number. In a Flemish town, a generation since, when a young girl died, her body was carried to the church, thence to the cemetery, by her former companions. "The religious ceremony over, and the coffin deposited in the earth, all the young girls, holding in one hand the mortuary cloth, returned to the church, chanting the maiden's dance with a spirit and rhythm scarcely conceivable by one who has not heard it. The pall which they carried to the church was of sky-blue silk, having in the middle a great cross of white silk, on which were set three crowns of silver."

The following is a rendering of the "Maiden's Dance:"

In heaven is a dance;
Alleluia!
There dance all the maids;
Benedicamus Domino—
Alleluia!

It is for Amelia;
Alleluia!
We dance like the maids;
Benedicamus Domino—
Alleluia!

Such touching customs show the profound original earnestness underlying the modern child's play, as well as the primitive religious significance of the dance. In England, too, it was the practice for the bearers of a virgin to be maids, as a ballad recites:

A garland fresh and faire
Of lilies there was made,
In signe of her virginity,
And on her coffin laid.
Six maidens, all in white,
Did beare her to the grave.

No. 12.
Down She Comes as White as Milk.

This round is remarkable for being introduced, wherever it occurs, by a stanza with a different melody, whereby the ballad is turned into a game. By this introduction the hero and heroine of the action are selected.

"Little Sally Waters," or "Uncle John," having been first played, the round proceeds about the couple standing in the ring:

He knocks at the door, and picks up a pin,
And asks if Miss —— is in.

She neither is in, she neither is out,
She's in the garret a-walking about.

Down she comes as white as milk,
A rose in her bosom, as soft as silk.

She takes off her gloves, and shows me a ring;
To-morrow, to-morrow, the wedding begins.[53]

Concord, Mass. (before 1800).

The version now played in New York streets is corrupt, but has a spirited melody:

Wa-ter, wa-ter, wild-flowers, grow-ing up so high;
We are all young la-dies, And we are sure to die,
Ex-cept-ing Su-sie Al-len, She is the fin-est flow-er.
Fie, fie, fie for shame; Turn about and tell your beau's name.

The girl complying, the ballad proceeds—

Mr. Nobody is a nice young man,
He comes to the door with his hat in his hand.

Down she comes, all dressed in silk,
A rose in her bosom, as white as milk.

She takes off her gloves, she shows me her ring,
To-morrow, to-morrow, the wedding begins.

The song before us furnishes a good example of the persistency of childish tradition. Not only is it still current in New England and the Middle States, with words closely corresponding to those given in our version of almost a century since, but these words are also nearly identical with the language of the round as we are told it is sung at the present day in Ireland.

Of a type similar to the foregoing is an ancient and curious, but unpublished, nursery song,[54] the first lines of which, at least, will be familiar to some of our readers:

Sing, sparrow, sing!
What shall I sing?
All the boys in our town have gone courting;
All but little Charley,
And he stays at home,
And he says he'll have Mary,
Or else he'll have none.

Row, boat, row!
Where shall I row?
Up to little Mary's door.
Out jumps little Charley in his boots and spurs,
And goes to the door, and pulls at the string—
"Where's little Mary? Is she within?"

"Miss Mary's up-stairs, a-making a cap."
Then down comes Miss Mary, as white as the milk,
All dressed in pink posies and sweet pretty silk,
And goes to the cupboard, and takes up the can,
And drinks to little Charley, a pretty little man.
He takes her in his lap, and pares her nails,[55]
And gives her a posy of peacock's tails,
And rings and jewels fit for her hand,
And tells little Mary he'll come again.

The mention in this rhyme of the cupboard and the can carries us to a time not so remote indeed in years, but far removed in customs. At the beginning of the century, in the old colonial towns, tumblers were unknown; the silver can stood on the table, and was passed from hand to hand at the meal, the elders drinking first. This usage was accompanied with much ceremony. An informant (born in Salem, Mass.), whose memory goes back almost to the beginning of the century, recollects how, when it came to be his turn to drink, he was obliged to rise and wipe his lips (the use of the same vessel by a whole family made this habit proper), and repeat the words, while parents and friends laid down knives and forks and looked on, "Duty to Sir and Ma'am, respects to aunt, love to brother and sister, and health to myself." Sometimes, he said, sensitive children would rather "go dry" than endure this ordeal.

No. 13.
Little Sally Waters.

A girl in the centre of the ring, seated, and covering her face with her hands. At the word "rise," she chooses and salutes any one whom she pleases.

Little Sally Waters,
Sitting in the sun,
Crying and weeping,
For a young man.
Rise, Sally, rise,
Dry your weeping eyes,
Fly to the East,
Fly to the West,
Fly to the one you love best.

In the north of England the heroine's name is Sally Walker:

Sally Walker, Sally Walker,
Come spring-time and love—
She's lamenting, she's lamenting,
All for her young man.

A ballad situation has been united with a dance-rhyme.

No. 14.
Here Sits the Queen of England.

Here sits the Queen of England in her chair,
She has lost the true love that she had last year;
So rise upon your feet, and kiss the first you meet,
For there's many around your chair.

Georgia.

No. 15.
Green Gravel.

A girl sits in the ring, and turns her head gravely as a messenger advances, while the rest sing to a pleasing air—

Green gravel, green gravel, the grass is so green,
And all the free masons (maidens) are ashamed (arrayed?) to "be seen;"[56]
O Mary, O Mary, your true love is dead,
The king sends you a letter to turn back your head.[57]

There are only two lines left of the ballad, or rather reminiscence of one.

A French round begins similarly: "Ah, the bringer of letters! What news is this? Ah, it is news that you must change your love.[58] Must I change my love, I prefer to die; he is not here, nor in France; he is in England, where he serves the gracious king." To this fragment belong the ancient verses which we have set as the motto of Chapter II. of our Introduction. All the other ladies of Paris are at the dance; the king's daughter alone "regarde à coté," "turns her head," looking at a messenger who is approaching; he brings news of her love's unfaithfulness; a rival skilled in magic arts has enchanted him, in the far country where he is warring. There is no more left of the ancient ballad, which, we presume, went on to describe her departure in man's costume, and rescue of her lover. We cannot prove the identity of our fragment, but we see how the child's game may have arisen.

No. 16.
Uncle John.

A ring of dancers who circle and sing—

Uncle John is very sick, what shall we send him?
A piece of pie, a piece of cake, a piece of apple-dumpling.[59]
What shall we send it in? In a piece of paper.
Paper is not fine[60] enough; in a golden saucer.
Who shall we send it by? By the governor's[61] daughter.
Take her by the lily-white hand, and lead her over the water.

After the words "governor's daughter" all the dancers fall down, and the last down stands apart, selects her confidential friend, and imparts with great mystery the initials of some boy in whom she takes an interest. She then returns, and takes her place in the ring with face reversed, while the friend announces the initials, and the dancers sing, using the letters given—

A. B., so they say,
Goes a-courting night and day,
Sword and pistol by his side,
And —— —— to be his bride;
Takes her by the lily-white hand,
And leads her o'er the water—
Here's a kiss, and there's a kiss
For Mr. ——'s daughter.

If the person representing "Uncle John" be a boy, his full name comes first in this rhyme, and the initials of the girl are used.

The choice of the confidante is said to require as much deliberation as the selection of an ambassador of state.

Hartford, Conn.

This is one of the most familiar of all children's rounds in our country. It is, we see, a love-history; and, thrice vulgarized as it is, bears traces of ancient origin, and may perhaps be the last echo of the mediæval song in which an imprisoned knight is saved from approaching death by the daughter of the king, or soldan, who keeps him in confinement.[62]

No. 17.
King Arthur was King William's Son.

A row of hats of various sizes, and belonging to both sexes, are placed on the floor. The leader picks up the first hat, and puts it on his own head, marching and singing the verse. He then takes up the next hat, and places it on the head of any one he pleases; the person chosen stands behind him, and they once more march, singing. The process is continued, until all the company are arranged in line:

King Arthur was King William's son,
And when the battle he had won,
Upon his breast he wore a star,
And it was called the sign of war.

Orange, New Jersey.

The following rhyme is exceedingly familiar, throughout the Middle and Southern States, as a kissing-round:

King William was King James's son, And all the roy-al race he run; Upon
his breast he wore a star, And it was called the sign of war.
King William was King James's son,[63]
And all the royal race he run;
Upon his head he wore a star.
Star of the East,
Star of the West,
Star of the one you love the best.
If she's not here don't take her part,
But choose another with all your heart.
Down on the carpet you must kneel,
As the grass grows on the field,
Salute your bride, and kiss her sweet,
And rise again upon your feet.

The round is also familiar in Ireland. We learn from an informant that in her town it was formerly played in a peculiar manner. Over the head of a girl, who stood in the centre of a ring, was held a shawl, sustained by four others grasping the corners. The game then proceeded as follows:

King William was King George's son—
From the Bay of Biscay, O!
Upon his breast he wore a star—
Find your way to English schools.

Then followed the game-rhyme, repeated with each stanza, "Go choose you East," etc. King William is then supposed to enter—

The first girl that I loved so dear,
Can it be she's gone from me?

If she's not here when the night comes on,
Will none of you tell me where she is gone?

He recognizes the disguised girl—

There's heart beneath the willow-tree,
There's no one here but my love and me.

"He had gone to the war, and promised to marry her when he came back. She wrapped a shawl about her head, to see if he would recognize her." This was all the reciter could recollect; the lines of the ballad were sung by an old woman, the ring answering with the game-rhyme.

Waterford, Ireland.

The round now in use in the town whence this comes, but where the ballad is not at present known, begins:

King William was King George's son—
From the Bay of Biscay, O!
Upon his breast he wore a star—
Point your way across the sea.

In the year 1287, Folke Algotson, a high-born Swedish youth, carried off to Norway (at that time the refuge of such boldness) Ingrid, a daughter of the "law-man" or judge of East Gothland, who was betrothed to a Danish noble. Popular ballads attached themselves to the occurrence, which are still preserved. The substance of that version of the story with which we are concerned is as follows: A youth loves a maid, who returns his affection, but in his absence her friends have "given" her to another. He rides to the wedding ceremony with a troop of followers. The bride, seeing him approach, and wishing to test his affection, calls on her maidens to "take off her gold crown, and coif her in linen white." But the hero at once recognizes his love, mounts with her on horseback, and flees to Norway.

We cannot believe the resemblance to be accidental, and look upon our rhymes as a branch from the same ancient—but not historical—root.

No. 18.
Little Harry Hughes and the Duke's Daughter.

The writer was not a little surprised to hear from a group of colored children, in the streets of New York city (though in a more incoherent form) the following ballad. He traced the song to a little girl living in one of the cabins near Central Park, from whom he obtained this version. The hut, rude as the habitation of a recent squatter on the plains, was perched on a rock still projecting above the excavations which had been made on either side, preparatory to the erection of the conventional "brown-stone fronts" of a New York street. Rocks flung by carelessly managed explosions flew over the roof, and clouds of dust were blown by every wind into the unswept hovel. In this unlikely spot lingered the relics of old English folk-song, amid all the stir of the busiest of cities. The mother of the family had herself been born in New York, of Irish parentage, but had learned from her own mother, and handed down to her children, such legends of the past as the ballad we cite. A pretty melody gave popularity to the verse, and so the thirteenth-century tradition, extinct perhaps in its native soil, had taken a new lease of existence as a song of negro children in New York.

Under the thin disguise of the heading will be recognized the ballad of "Hugh of Lincoln and the Jew's Daughter," the occasion of which is referred by Matthew Paris to the year 1255. Chaucer, in exquisite verse, has made his Prioress recount the same story: how the child,

This gemme of chastitè, this emeraude,
And eek of martirdom the ruby bright,

has his throat cut by "false Jewes," and, cast into a pit, still sings his chant in honor of

This welle of mercy, Christes moder sweet;

and, when discovered, cannot be buried in peace till the magic grain is removed which "that blissful maiden fre" has laid under his tongue.

The conclusion is, in our version, only implied. In that given by Jamieson the murdered child, speaking from the well, bids his mother prepare the winding-sheet, for he will meet her in the morn "at the back of merry Lincoln;" and the funeral service is performed by angels.

It was on a May, on a midsummer's day,
When it rained, it did rain small;
And little Harry Hughes and his playfellows all
Went out to play the ball.

He knocked it up, and he knocked it down,
He knocked it o'er and o'er;
The very first kick little Harry gave the ball,
He broke the duke's windows all.

She came down, the youngest duke's daughter,
She was dressed in green;
"Come back, come back, my pretty little boy,
And play the ball again."

"I won't come back, and I daren't come back,
Without my playfellows all;
And if my mother she should come in,
She'd make it the bloody ball."[64]

She took an apple out of her pocket,
And rolled it along the plain;
Little Harry Hughes picked up the apple,
And sorely rued the day.

She takes him by the lily-white hand,
And leads him from hall to hall,
Until she came to a little dark room,
That none could hear him call.

She sat herself on a golden chair,
Him on another close by;
And there's where she pulled out her little penknife
That was both sharp and fine.

Little Harry Hughes had to pray for his soul,
For his days were at an end;
She stuck her penknife in little Harry's heart,
And first the blood came very thick, and then came very thin.[65]

She rolled him in a quire of tin,
That was in so many a fold;
She rolled him from that to a little draw-well
That was fifty fathoms deep.

"Lie there, lie there, little Harry," she cried,
"And God forbid you to swim,
If you be a disgrace to me,
Or to any of my friends."

The day passed by, and the night came on,
And every scholar was home,
And every mother had her own child,
But poor Harry's mother had none.[66]

She walked up and down the street,
With a little sally-rod[67] in her hand;
And God directed her to the little draw-well,
That was fifty fathoms deep.

"If you be there, little Harry," she said,
"And God forbid you to be,
Speak one word to your own dear mother,
That is looking all over for thee."

"This I am, dear mother," he cried,
"And lying in great pain,
With a little penknife lying close to my heart,
And the duke's daughter she has me slain.

"Give my blessing to my schoolfellows all,
And tell them to be at the church,
And make my grave both large and deep,
And my coffin of hazel and green birch.

"Put my Bible at my head,
My busker[68] (?) at my feet,
My little prayer-book at my right side,
And sound will be my sleep."

No. 19.
Barbara Allen.

In the first quarter of the century, this celebrated ballad was still used in New England as a children's game or dance at evening parties. We have here, perhaps, the latest English survival, in cultivated society, of a practice which had once been universal. It is noteworthy that while, in the town of which we speak,[69] the establishment, at the period alluded to, of a children's dancing-school was bitterly opposed, and the children of "church members" were hardly permitted to attend, no such prohibition applied to amusements like this, which were shared in irrespective of sectarian prejudice, by boys as well as by girls.

Our informant describes the performers as standing in couples, consisting each of a boy and a girl, facing each other. An elderly lady, who was in particular request at children's parties on account of her extensive stock of lore of the sort, sang the ballad, to which the dancers kept time with a slow metrical movement, balancing without any considerable change of place. At the final words, "Barbara Allen," which end every stanza, a courtesy took the place of the usual refrain. The whole performance is described as exceedingly pretty, stately, and decorous. It cannot be doubted that the version of the ballad sung was traditional, but we have not been able to secure it.

FOOTNOTES:

[53] The song exhibits numerous marks of antiquity. "Picks up a pin" was originally, no doubt, "pulls at the pin." The word "garret" here appears to correspond to the Scandinavian "high-loft," the upper part and living-room of an ancient house. The third verse is a very ancient ballad commonplace—

Shee's as soft as any silk,
And as white as any milk.

"Ballad of Kinge Adler," in the Percy MS.

Instead of "Water, water, wild-flowers," as printed on the next page, we find in Philadelphia, "Lily, lily, white-flower," which may have been the original, and reminds us of the refrains of certain ballads. In Yorkshire, England, "Willy, willy, wall-flower."

A specimen of the quintessence of absurdity is the following street-song:

Swallow, swallow, weeping
About a willow tree,
All the boys in Fiftieth Street
Are dying down below;
Excepting —— ——
His love he can't deny,
For he loves —— ——
And she loves him beside, etc.

Notwithstanding the vulgarity of these stanzas, and of others which are employed for the same purpose, the practice which they illustrate—namely, the adaptation of a ballad to the dance by uniting with it a game-rhyme—is no doubt ancient. We have other examples in the numbers which follow.

[54] "Lines told to Lydia Jackson (now Mrs. R. W. Emerson, of Concord, Mass.) by her aunt, Joanna Cotton, in 1806-7-8, in Plymouth."

[55] Observe how the nursery song differs from the children's dance. The nurse wishes to persuade the little child in her lap that paring nails is a mark of great regard and affection, as, while performing that office, she chants the ballad to amuse her charge.

[56] "It is on a summer's tide, when ladies' hearts are free and gay, when they go arrayed in ermine and silk. The hart strikes his horn against the linden, and the fish leaps in the stream."—Icelandic Ballad.

[57] Some little friends, feeling the unsatisfactoriness of the fragment, added a couplet to the dance—

O Mary, O Mary, your true love's not slain,
The king sends you a letter to turn round again.

[58]
Eh! la clinquet (?) de lettres, que nouvelle est celle-ci?
Eh! ce sont des nouvelles qu'il faut changer d'ami.

[59] Or, "Three gold wishes, three good kisses, and a slice of ginger!"

[60] Or, "strong."

[61] Or, "king's daughter," "queen's daughter."

[62] See French ballad referred to in the Appendix.

[63] Or, "King George's son." For convenience sake, the last couplet of the first version is printed with the melody.

[64]

For if my mother should chance to know,
She'd make my blood to fall.—Version of Sir Egerton Brydges.

[65]

And first came out the thick, thick blood,
And syne came out the thin;
And syne came out the bonny heart's blood,
There was nae mair within.

Jamieson.

[66]

When bells were rung, and mass was sung,
And a' the bairns came hame,
When every lady gat hame her son,
The lady Maisry gat nane.

Jamieson.

[67] Sallow; willow.

[68] In other versions it is "Testament" or "Catechism."

[69] Keene, New Hampshire.

III.
PLAYING AT WORK.

"The king (George III.) danced all night, and finished with the Hemp-dressers, that lasted two hours."—Memoir of Mrs. Delany.

No. 20.
Virginia Reel.

This dance, which we will not here attempt to describe, is no doubt well known to our readers; but we doubt if any of them has reflected on its significance. It is, in fact, an imitation of weaving. The first movements represent the shooting of the shuttle from side to side, and the passage of the woof over and under the threads of the warp; the last movements indicate the tightening of the threads, and bringing together of the cloth.[70]

There is a very similar Swedish dance, called "Weaving Woollen," in which the words sung are—

Weave the woollen and bind it together,
Let the shuttle go round!

The originally imitative character of the dance is thus well illustrated. The "Hemp-dressers' Dance," in which George III. figured, seems to have resembled this, according to the description quoted in the memoir referred to in the heading of this chapter.

No. 21.
Oats, Pease, Beans, and Barley Grows.

This round, although very familiar to all American children, seems, strangely enough, to be unknown in Great Britain; yet it is still a favorite in France, Provence, Spain, Italy, Sicily, Germany, and Sweden; it was played by Froissart (born 1337), and Rabelais (born 1483); while the general resemblance of the song in European countries proves that in the five centuries through which we thus trace it, even the words have undergone little change. Like the first game of our collection, it is properly a dance rather of young people than of children; and a comparative examination of versions inclines us to the belief that it is of Romance descent. The lines of the French refrain,[71] and the general form of the dance, suggest that the song may probably have had (perhaps in remote classic time) a religious and symbolic meaning, and formed part of rustic festivities designed to promote the fertility of the fields; an object which undoubtedly formed the original purpose of the May festival. So much for conjecture; but, in any case, it is pleasant to think of the many generations of children, in so many widely separated lands, who have rejoiced in the pretty game.

The ring circles, singing, about a child in the centre—

Oats, pease, beans, and barley grows,
Oats, pease, beans, and barley grows;
How you, nor I, nor nobody knows,
Oats, pease, beans, and barley grows.

The children now pause, and sing with appropriate gestures—

Thus the farmer sows his seed,
Stands erect and takes his ease,
Stamps his foot, and claps his hands,
And turns about to view his lands.

Waiting for a partner,
Waiting for a partner,
Open the ring and take her in,
And kiss her when you get her in.

The boy selects a girl, and the two kneel in the ring, and salute—

Now you're married, you must obey,
You must be true to all you say,
You must be kind, you must be good,
And make your husband chop the wood.

What we have said of the permanency of the words applies only to the action, the essential part, of the game. The amatory chorus, by which the song is made to serve the purpose of love-making, is very variable. Thus we have the quaint conclusion of the last line at greater length:

And now you're married in Hymen's band,
You must obey your wife's command;
You must obey your constant good,
And keep your wife in hickory wood—
Split the wood and carry it in, [twice]
And then she'll let you kiss her again.

"Splitting the wood" was a very troublesome part of the New England farmer's ménage.

More commonplace are the choruses:

You must be good, you must be true,
And do as you see others do.

Or—

And live together all your life,
And I pronounce you man and wife.

Or again—

And love each other like sister and brother,
And now kneel down and kiss each other.[72]

In place of "sister and brother," the malicious wit of little girls substituted "cats and dogs."[73]

In the early part of the century the essential stanza went thus in New Hampshire:

Thus my father sows his seed,
Stands erect and takes his ease,
Stamps his foot, and claps his hands,
Whirls about, and thus he stands.

The Swedish quatrain is nearly the same:

I had a father, he sowed this way,
And when he had done, he stood this way;
He stamped with his foot, he clapped with his hand,
He turned about, he was so glad.

The French rhyme, by its exact correspondence, proves the great antiquity of the formula.[74]

The German game, as is often the case with German children's games and ballads in general, is more modernized than in the other tongues, and has become a coarse jest. It is represented how the farmer sows his oats, cuts it, binds it, carries it home, stores it, threshes it, takes it to market, sells it, spends the money in carousal, comes home drunk, and quarrels with his wife, because she has cooked him no supper! Verily, a satire from the lips of children!

Fauriel, in his history of Provençal literature, alludes to this song, which it seems he had seen danced in Provence, and considers to be derived from, and to represent, choral dances of Greek rustics. "The words of the song," he says, speaking of these ancient dances, "described an action, a succession of different situations, which the dancers reproduced by their gestures. The song was divided into many stanzas, and terminated by a refrain alike for all. The dancers acted or gesticulated only to imitate the action or situation described in each stanza; at the refrain they took each other by the hand and danced a round, with a movement more or less lively. There are everywhere popular dances derived from these, which more or less resemble them.... I remember to have seen in Provence some of these dances, of which the theme seems to be very ancient—one, among the rest, imitating successively the habitual actions of a poor laborer, working in his field, sowing his wheat or oats, mowing, and so on to the end. Each of the numerous couplets of the song was sung with a slow and dragging motion, as if to imitate the fatigue and the sullen air of the poor laborer; and the refrain was of a very lively movement, the dancers then giving way to all their gayety."[75]

The French, Italian, and Spanish versions of this game also represent a series of actions, sowing, reaping, etc., of which our own rhyme has retained only one stanza. There is a whole class of similar rounds, which describe the labors of the farmer, vine-dresser, etc. That such a song, danced in sowing-time, and representing the progress and abundance of the crop, should be supposed to bring a blessing on the labors of the year, is quite in conformity with what we know of popular belief, ancient and modern. When a French savant asked the peasants of La Châtre why they performed the dance of "Threading the Needle" (see No. 29), the answer was, "To make the hemp grow." It is not in the least unlikely that the original of the present chant was sung, with a like object, by Italian rustics in the days of Virgil.

No. 22.
Who'll Be the Binder?

Couples circle in a ring about a single player—

It rains, it hails, it's cold stormy weather,
In comes the farmer drinking all the cider;
You be the reaping-boy and I'll be the binder;
I've lost my true love, and don't know where to find her.

Each girl then lets go of her partner's arm, and takes the arm of the one in advance, and the solitary player endeavors meanwhile to slip into the line.

The following is a variation:

It snows and it blows, and it's cold frosty weather,
Here comes the farmer drinking all his cider;
I'll be the reaper, who'll be the binder?
I've lost my true love, where shall I find her?

It is played by children in New York city as a kissing-game in the ring, as follows:

In comes the farmer, drinking all the cider;
I have a true love and don't know where to find her.
Go round the ring, and see if you can find her;
If you cannot find her, go and choose another one.

We meet our game once more in North Germany. But its prettiest form is among the Fins of the Baltic coast, where it is extremely pleasing and pastoral:

Reap we the oat harvest,
Who will come and bind it?
Ah, perhaps his darling,
Treasure of his bosom.
Where have I last seen her?
Yesterday at evening,
Yesterday at morning!
When will she come hither,
With her little household,
With her gentle escort,
People of her village?
Who has not a partner,
Let him pay a forfeit!

It is a remarkable fact that, even where this simple people have borrowed the dramatic idea of an amusement from their more civilized neighbors, they have developed it with a sweetness and grace which put the latter to shame.

No. 23.
As We Go Round the Mulberry Bush.

As we go round the mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush;
As we go round the mulberry bush,
So early in the morning.

This is the way we wash our clothes,
All of a Monday morning.

This is the way we iron our clothes,
All of a Tuesday morning.

This is the way we scrub our floor,
All of a Wednesday morning.

This is the way we mend our clothes,
All of a Thursday morning.

This is the way we sweep the house,
All of a Friday morning.

This is the way we bake our bread,
All of a Saturday morning.

This is the way we go to church,
All of a Sunday morning.

In Massachusetts the song goes—

Here we go round the barberry bush,
So early in the morning.

A variation makes the last line—

All on a frosty morning.

No. 24.
Do, Do, Pity my Case.

Do, do, pity my case,
In some lady's garden;
My clothes to wash when I get home,
In some lady's garden.

Do, do, pity my case,
In some lady's garden;
My clothes to iron when I get home,
In some lady's garden.

And so on, the performers lamenting the duty which lies upon them of scrubbing their floors, baking their bread, etc.

Louisiana.

This pretty dance, with its idiomatic English, which comes to us from the extreme South, is obviously not modern. The chorus refers, not to the place of the labor, but to the locality of the dance: it may have been originally in my lady's garden. Our informant remembers the game as danced by negro children, their scanty garments flying as the ring spun about the trunk of some large tree; but (though the naive appeal to pity may seem characteristic of Southern indolence) this is evidently no negro song.

No. 25.
When I Was a Shoemaker.

A ROUND.

When I was a shoemaker,
And a shoemaker was I,
This way,[76] and this way,
And this way went I.

When I was a gentleman,
And a gentleman was I,
This way, and this way,
And this way went I.

When I was a lady,
And a lady was I,
This way, and this way,
And this way went I.

So on, indefinitely. The gentleman places his hands in his waistcoat pockets, and promenades up and down; the lady gathers her skirts haughtily together; the fireman makes a sound in imitation of the horns which firemen formerly blew; the shoemaker and hair-dresser are represented by appropriate motions, etc.

New York streets.

As with most street-games, further inquiry has shown us that the song is old in America. Not merely the substance (which is identical with our last two numbers), but also the expression, is paralleled in France and Italy, and even on the extreme limits of European Russia.

The well-known French name of this game "The Bridge of Avignon,"[77] indicates a high antiquity. This bridge, which figures in French nursery-lore as London Bridge does in our own, was built in 1177. Bridges, in the Middle Age, were the most important structures in the land, places of festivity and solemnity, dances, trials, and executions.

No. 26.
Here We Come Gathering Nuts of May.

Two opposite rows of girls. One side advances and sings, the other side replying:

"Here we come gathering nuts of May, [thrice]
On a May morning early."

"Whom will you gather for nuts of May,
On a May morning early?"

"We'll gather [naming a girl] for nuts of May,
On a May morning early."

"Whom will you send to fetch her away,
On a May morning early?"

"We'll send [naming a strong girl] to pull her away,
On a May morning early."

The game is continued until all players are brought to one side.

Charlestown, W. Va.

This game is probably a recent importation from England, where it is very well known. It seems likely that the imitative dance really belongs to the season of nut-gathering,[78] and that the phrase, "Nuts of May," and the refrain, have crept in from its later use as a May-game.

No. 27.
Here I Brew, and Here I Bake.

A ring of children clasp hands by clenching fingers; a single child within the circle repeats the rhyme, making appropriate gestures over successive pairs of hands; at the last words he (or she) throws himself (or herself) against what is thought the most penetrable point.

Here I brew and here I bake,
And here I make my wedding-cake,
And here I must break through.

The following is a different version:

Here I bake and here I brew,
And here I lay my wedding-shoe,
And here I must and shall break through.

If the first attempt is not successful, the player within the ring runs to attack some other point. After the ring is broken, the child on his right continues the game. In New York, a violent form of the same sport goes by the name of "Bull in the Ring."

No. 28.
Draw a Bucket of Water.

Four girls cross hands, and pull in rhythmical movement against each other while singing, one pair changing the position of their hands from above to below that of the other pair at the words, "Here we go under," etc.

Draw a bucket of water
For my lady's daughter.
One in a rush,
Two in a rush,
Here we go under the mulberry bush.

New York.

In Massachusetts this was a ring game:

Draw a pail of water
For my lady's daughter.
Give her a ring and a silver pin,
And pay for my lady's pop under.

At the last words the girl within the ring endeavors to pass under the hands of one of the couples.

No. 29.
Threading the Needle.

A boy and a girl, standing each on a stool, make an arch of their hands, under which an endless chain passes, until the hands are dropped, and one of the players is enclosed.

The needle's eve
That doth supply
The thread that runs so true;
Ah! many a lass
Have I let pass
Because I wanted you.

Or—

The needle's eye
You can't pass by,
The thread it runs so true;
It has caught many a seemly lass,
And now it has caught you.

Massachusetts.

In the following more complicated form of the game, in use half a century ago, both a boy and a girl were caught by the players who raised their arms:

The needle's eye
None can surpass
But those who travel through;
It hath caught many a smiling lass,
But now it hath caught you.

There's none so sweet
That is dressed so neat;[79]
I do intend,
Before I end,
To make this couple meet.

The pair then kissed, and the game proceeded as in "London Bridge," ending with a tug-of-war.

The name, "Threading the Needle," is still applied, in a district of central France, to a dance in which many hundred persons take part, in which from time to time the pair who form the head of the row raise their arms to allow the line to pass through, coiling and winding like a great serpent.

FOOTNOTES:

[70] An acquaintance says, that in the interior of New York State the men and girls stand in the row by sevens; an arrangement which she suggests may imitate the different colors of strands.

[71]

Oats, oats, oats,
May the good God prosper you!

[72] These choruses, which may be paralleled from Great Britain, do not in themselves belong to any particular game.

[73] We find the same benevolent wish, under like circumstances, in a Swedish game. Is the correspondence accident or tradition?

[74]

Qui veut ouir, qui veut savoir,
Comment on sème l'aveine?
Mon père la sèmait ainsi,
Puis il se reposait à demi;
Frappe du pied, puis de la main,
Un petit tour pour ton voisin;
Aveine, aveine, aveine,
Que le Bon Dieu t'amène!

[75] Fauriel supposed the present round to be derived from Massiliot Greeks; but he was unacquainted with its diffusion in Europe.

[76] Sung "a this a way."

[77]

Sur le Pont d'Avignon,
Les messieurs font ça,
Et puis encore ça.

Then come "les dames," "les cordonniers," etc.

In the corresponding Russian game, a single player mimics the walk of old men, priests, or the habits of any trade or person in the company.

[78]

Nous sommes à trois fillettes,
Pour aller cueillir noisettes;
Quand les noisettes sont cueillies,
Nous sommes mises à danser.

[79] "We considered this a personal compliment. I remember we used to feel very much pleased—children are so sensitive!"—Informant.

IV.
HUMOR AND SATIRE.

Andante.

Perrette est bien malade,
En danger de mourir.

Presto.

Son ami la va voire;
Te laira' tu mourir?

Andante.

Non, non, répondit-elle,
Je ne veux pas mourir.

Canadian Song.

No. 30.
Soldier, Soldier, Will You Marry Me?

The question is then repeated, the soldier pleading his want of shoes gloves, etc., which the confiding fair procures, until at last—

"Soldier, soldier, will you marry me,
With your knapsack, fife, and drum?"
"Oh no, my pretty maiden, I cannot marry you,
For I have—a good wife—at home!"

This piece and the following are more or less familiar as children's songs through the United States. Our version was sung by children of from five to eight years of age, and made a favorite amusement at the afternoon gatherings. When one couple had finished, another pair would begin, and so on for hours at a time. The object was to provide for the soldier the most varied wardrobe possible; while the maiden put the question with spirit, laying her hand on her heart, respecting which the prevailing opinion was that it was under the left arm.

No. 31.
Quaker Courtship.

In this piece, two children (in costume or otherwise) impersonate a Quaker paying his addresses to a young lady of the world.

"Madam, I am come a-courting—
Hum, hum, heigho hum!
'Tis for pleasure, not for sporting—
Hum, hum, heigho hum!"

"Sir, it suits me to retire,
Teedle link tum, teedle tum a tee;
You may sit and court the fire,
Teedle link tum, teedle tum a tee."

"Madam, here's a ring worth forty shilling,
Thou may'st have it if thou art willing."

"What care I for rings or money?
I'll have a man who will call me honey."

"Madam, thou art tall and slender;
Madam, I know thy heart is tender."

"Sir, I see you are a flatterer,
And I never loved a Quaker."

"Must I give up my religion?
Must I be a Presbyterian?"

"Cheer up, cheer up, loving brother,
If you can't catch one fish, catch another."

Hartford, Conn.

No. 32.
Lazy Mary.

A mother and daughter in the centre of a ring, the daughter kneeling with closed eyes. Mother advances—

"Lazy Mary, will you get up,
Will you get up, will you get up,
Will you get up to-day?"

"What will you give me for my breakfast,
If I get up, if I get up,
If I get up to-day?"

The reply is, "A slice of bread and a cup of tea," whereon Mary answers, "No, mother, I won't get up," and responds similarly to the call to dinner; but for supper the mother offers "a nice young man with rosy cheeks," which is accepted with the words, "Yes, mother, I will get up," whereon the ring clap their hands. The round is familiar in New York streets. There is a corresponding English song, with a tragic ending.

No. 33.
Whistle, Daughter, Whistle.

New York.

The subject of this and the preceding number has furnished endless mirth to popular poetry. The present song is ancient; for it is identical with a German, Flemish, and French round of the fifteenth or sixteenth century, in which a nun (or monk) is tempted to dance by similar offers. The spirit of the latter piece seems to be rather light-hearted ridicule than puritanic satire, and the allusion does not show that the piece is subsequent to the Reformation.

No. 34.
There were Three Jolly Welshmen.

There were three jolly Welshmen,
And I have heard them say,
That they would go a-hunting
Upon St. David's day—
Look—a—there—now!

They hunted, they hunted,
And nothing could they find,
But a woman in the road,
And her they left behind—
Look—a—there—now!

One said it was a woman,
The other said nay;
One said it was an angel
With the wings blowed away—
Look—a—there—now!

We have obtained only three verses of the song, which was a favorite with little children as they sat on the door-step of a summer's evening. Another version of the ancient jest comes to us as sung by college students:

(Slow and mournful, in C minor.)

And so they went along,
To see what they could see,
And soon they saw a frog
A-sitting under a tree.
(Recit.) So—they—did.

One said it was a frog,
But the other said nay—
One said it was a canary-bird
With the feathers blown away.
(Recit.) So—it—was.

And so they went along,
To see what they could see,
And soon they saw a barn
A-standing by a tree.

One said it was a barn,
But the other said nay,
One said it was a meeting-house
With the steeple blown away.

And so they went along,
To see what they could see,
And soon they saw an owl,
A-sitting on a tree.

One said it was an owl,
But the other said nay,
One said it was the Evil One!
And they all ran away.

No. 35.
A Hallowe'en Rhyme.

A ROUND.

Oh, dear doctor, don't you cry!
Your true love will come by-and-by.

If she comes all dressed in green,
That's a sign she's to be seen.

If she comes all dressed in white,
That's a sign she'll cry all night.

If she comes all dressed in gray,
That's a sign that she's away.

If she comes all dressed in blue,
That's a sign she'll marry you.

New York.

A variation:

Oh, Miss Betsy, don't you cry!
For your true love will come by'm-bye;
When he comes he'll dress in blue—
Then he'll bring you, something new.

Massachusetts.

These corrupt rhymes are only interesting as illustrating the permanence of Hallowe'en customs, even in America. The Scotch rhyme of Chambers goes—

This knot, this knot, this knot I knit,
To see the thing I ne'er saw yet—
To see my love in his array,
And what he walks in every day;
And what his occupation be,
This night I in my sleep may see.
And if my love be clad in green,
His love for me is well seen;
And if my love be clad in gray,
His love for me is far away;
But if my love be clad in blue,
His love for me is very true.

After repeating these words, the girl puts her knotted garter beneath her pillow, and sleeps on it, when her future husband will appear to her in a dream.

No. 36.
The Doctor's Prescription.

A ROUND.

Oh, dear doctor, can you tell,
What will make poor —— well?
She is sick and like to die,
And that will make poor —— cry.

A kiss was the prescription.

We insert this silly little round, chiefly because, according to Madame Celnart, a French equivalent was in favor, not with infants, but ladies and gentlemen in polite society, only half a century since. Our authority says:

"The master or the mistress of this round is called doctor. This doctor takes the arm of the person seated on his right, regards him or her with an eye of compassion, feels his pulse, and then gives his order, which everybody repeats, singing, 'Give me your arm that I may cure you, for you seem to me to look ill.'[80] Then, designating by a glance some person of the other sex, he says, 'Embrace monsieur (or madame) to cure you; it is an excellent remedy.' All the persons in the ring are submitted to this treatment, which the physician knows how to render piquant by the choice of the panacea which he recommends to his patient; when everybody is cured, the doctor passes over his science and dignity to the last person who has tested the efficacy of his prescription, and in his turn falls sick, to make trial of the pleasing remedy."

The general theme of our vulgarized round is more agreeably expressed in the quaint and ancient Canadian song which we have cited as the motto of the present chapter.

No. 37.
Old Grimes.

Old Grimes is dead and in his grave laid,
In his grave, in his grave, in his grave laid—
O aye O!

There grew up an apple-tree over his head—
The apples were ripe and ready to fall—
Then came an old woman a-picking them up—
Old Grimes got up and gave her a kick—
And made her go hobbledy, hobbledy, hip—
The bridles and saddles they hang on the shelf—
And if you want any more you must sing it yourself—
O aye O!

New York streets.

A friend informs us that he has often heard the words of this unintelligible round sung as a "shanty," or song used by sailors at their work, with the chorus, yeo heave-ho! In Cambridge, Mass., the name of the deceased was "Old Cromwell." We have also a version of half a century since, beginning,

Jemmy and Nancy went up to Whitehall,
Jemmy fell sick among them all.

No. 38.
The Baptist Game.

Such is the peculiar title of this amusement in Virginia, where it is said to be enjoyed by pious people who will not dance. There is a row of couples, with an odd player at the head. At the sudden close of the song occurs a grand rush and change of partners.

Come, all ye young men, in your evil ways,
And sow your wild oats in your youthful days;
You shall be happy,
You shall be happy,
When you grow old.

The night is far spent, and the day's coming on,
So give us your arm, and we'll jog along,
You shall be happy,
You shall be happy,
When you grow old.

Albemarle Co., Va.

This game, with verbal identity (save the title), was a few years since an amusement of well-bred girls in New York city. It has also been familiar in Massachusetts, with the exception of one line—

Come all ye old maids in your sinful ways!

No. 39.
Trials, Troubles, and Tribulations.

All participating are blindfolded, and, joining hands, march forward, singing—

Here we go through the Jewish nation,
Trials, troubles, and tribulation.

The fun consists in bringing up against a door, or in causing a general downfall by tripping over some obstacle.

New York.

No. 40.
Happy is the Miller.

An odd number of players, of whom the one not paired stands in the centre of the ring. The others march in couples, each consisting of a girl and a boy, till the sudden end of the song, when each boy grasps the girl in front of him.

Happy is the miller, who lives by himself,
All the bread and cheese he piles upon the shelf,
One hand in the hopper, and the other in the bag,
The wheel turns around, and he cries out, Grab!

Western New York.

Another version:

Happy is the miller that lives in the mill;
While the mill goes round, he works with a will;
One hand in the hopper, and one in the bag,
The mill goes around, and he cries out, Grab!

Cincinnati.

The miller, whose pay used to be taken in a proportion of corn ground, was a common object of popular satire.

In Germany the mill-wheel, as it slowly revolves, is said to exclaim—

There is—a thief—in the mill!

Then, moving more quickly—

Who is he? who is he? who is he?

And at last answers very fast, and without pausing—

The miller! the miller! the miller!

"Round and Round, the Mill Goes Round," is mentioned as an English dance at the end of the seventeenth century. A song of "The Happy Miller" is printed in "Pills to Purge Melancholy" (1707), of which the first verse is—

How happy is the mortal that lives by his mill!
That depends on his own, not on Fortune's wheel;
By the sleight of his hand, and the strength of his back,
How merrily his mill goes, clack, clack, clack!

This song was doubtless founded on the popular game; but the modern children's sport has preserved the idea, if not the elegance, of the old dance better than the printed words of a hundred and seventy years since. A variation of the same game is still familiar in Canada and Sweden.[81]

No. 41.
The Miller of Gosport.

That the prejudice against the honesty of the miller was not confined to the Old World will appear from the following ballad:

There was an old miller in Gosport did dwell:
He had three sons whom he loved full well;
He called them to him, one—by—one,
Saying, "My—life—is—al—most—done!"[82]

He called to him his eldest son,
Saying, "My life is almost done,
And if I to you the mill shall make,
Pray, say what toll you mean to take?"

"Father," says he, "my name is Dick,
And aout of each bushel I'll take one peck—
Of every bushel—that—I—grind,
I'll take one peck to ease my mind."

"Thou foolish son," the old man said,
"Thou hasn't but one half larnt thy trade!
The mill to you I'll never give,
For by such toll no man can thrive."

He called to him his second son,
Saying, "My life is almost done,
And if I to you the mill shall make,
Pray, say what toll you mean to take?"

"Father," says he, "my name is Ralph,
And aout of each bushel I'll take one half—
Of every bushel that I grind,
I'll take one half to ease my mind."

"Thou foolish son," the old man said,
"Thou hasn't but one half larnt thy trade;
The mill to you I'll never give,
For by such toll no man can thrive."

He called to him his youngest son,
Saying, "My life is almost done;
And if I to you the mill shall make,
Pray, say what toll you mean to take?"

"Father," says he, "I am your boy,
And in taking of toll shall be all my joy;
That an honest living I ne'er may lack,
I'll take the whole, and steal the sack."

"Thou art my son," the old man said;
"Thou'st larnt thy good—old—fayther's trade;
The mill to you I do—betide"—
And—so—he—closed—his eyes—and—died.

Another version finds its way to us from the West, and ends with an uncomplimentary opinion as to the habitation of the miller in the other world.

FOOTNOTES:

[80]

Donne-moi ton bras que je te guérisse,
Car tu m'as l'air malade,
Loula,
Car tu m'as l'air malade!

[81] The Canadian words are, "J'entends le moulin, tique, tique, tique." Probably the old English dance ended, "How merrily the mill goes, clack, clack, clack!" after which, as now in Canada, partners were changed, and the odd player in the centre had an opportunity to secure a place, or to find a mate.

[82] The pauses lengthen as the patient grows weaker.

V.
FLOWER ORACLES, ETC.

A spire of grass hath made me gay;
It saith, I shall find mercy mild.
I measured in the selfsame way
I have seen practised by a child.
Come look and listen if she really does:
She does, does not, she does, does not, she does.
Each time I try, the end so augureth.
That comforts me—'tis right that we have faith.

Walther von der Vogelweide [A.D. 1170-1230].

No. 42.
Flower Oracles.

Plucking one by one the petals of the ox-eye daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare), children ask:

Rich man, poor man, beggar-man, thief,
Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief.[83]

Girls then take a second flower, and, getting some one else to name it, proceed, in order to determine where they are to live:

Big house, little house, pigsty, barn.

And in like manner use a third to discover in what dress they are to be married:

Silk, satin, calico, rags.

Finally, they consult a fourth, to find out what the bridal equipage is to be:

Coach, wagon, wheelbarrow, chaise.

Another version gives for the second line of the first formula:

Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief.

In Switzerland, girls in like manner say, as they pick off the flower-leaves of the common daisy (Bellis perennis):

Be single, marry, or go into the cloister?

And boys—

Rich, poor, moderate?

The marguerite (Doronicum bellidiastrum) is asked in the same country:

Heaven, hell, purgatory, paradise?

And in Styria is called "Love's Measure," because it determines the return of affection according to the well-known formula, "He loves me, he loves me not," for which a French equivalent is:

Je t'aime, un peu, beaucoup,
Tendrement, pas du tout.

But in Switzerland again the questions for the marguerite exactly match ours:

Nobleman, beggar-man, farmer, soldier, student,
Emperor, king, gentleman.

The verse is similar in Italy. It is curious to see the precise correspondence of English and Continental forms.

Mediæval writers do not mention this use of flower-petals, but frequently allude to the custom of drawing spires of grass, to secure the longer (or shorter, as might be agreed). Thus lads might draw grasses, for the purpose of deciding to which of the two a maiden might belong as a partner. This was so usual a way of deciding a controversy that it was even recognized in law, where the parties to a suit drew straws from a thatch or sheaf. Children still resort to a like arbitrament, where one holds the straws in the hand, and the other draws, the shorter straw winning. To our surprise, we find that girls in Massachusetts still keep up the mediæval usage; they draw stalks of grass in the field, and match them, to decide who shall begin a game—be "it."[84]

We have seen that the formula "Loves me, loves me not," was used in the Middle Age with grasses. In Italy the oracle is consulted by means of the branch of a tree. A twig is taken having alternate leaves, and they are detached one by one, the consulter always turning the head as the words of the oracle are spoken. The formulas for this purpose closely resemble our own: thus, "This year, another year, soon, never," which is exactly identical with the English "This year, next year, some time, never;" or, "He loves me, longs for me, desires me, wishes me well; wishes me ill, does not care;" or, as in the Swiss form given, "Paradise, Purgatory, Caldron" (that is, Inferno).

No. 43.
Use of Flowers in Games.

Flowers are gathered and loved by children as they have always been, and are used by them in all sorts of imaginative exercises of their own invention, as, for instance, by girls in their imitative housekeeping; but there is singularly little employment of them in any definite games. Formerly it was otherwise; but the deep sympathy which blooming youth once felt and expressed for the bloom of the year seems to have almost disappeared.

In the Middle Age, as in classic antiquity, flowers were much in use for dances. Great attention was paid to the significance of particular blooms. "What flowers will you give me for a garland? What flowers are proper for adornment?" are mentioned as names of sports. It was a practice for the lover to approach his mistress with a flower or fruit which he offered for her acceptance. If the girl accepted the gift, the youth led her out, and the dance began. Another ancient practice was to throw to a girl some bloom, at the same time pronouncing a couplet which rhymed with the name of the flower. The ball, too, with which youths and maids played, was sometimes made of flowers.

Almost the only relic of ancient usage of this sort, with us, is the employment little girls make of dandelions, with which (in some parts of the country) they make long garlands, cutting off the heads and stringing them together.

This use of the dandelion is very old, from which it derives one of its many German names, the chain-flower or ring-flower. On account of its early bloom and golden hue it is especially the flower of spring, and seems to have had a religious and symbolic meaning. In Switzerland these garlands are used in the dance, the children holding a long wreath of the flowers so as to form a circle within the ring; and whoever breaks the chain pays forfeit. The plant is said to be of healing virtue, gives happiness to the lover, and, if plucked on particular days, will heal troubles of the eye. It has these qualities on account of its brightness, which causes it to be associated with the victorious power of light.

There are other ways of using this flower. A dandelion in seed is held to the lips; if the seeds can all be blown off in three attempts, it is a sign of successful love, of marriage within the year; or, with little girls, that "my mother wants me."