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. Down on the carpet you must kneel; As the grass grows in the field, Salute your bride and kiss her sweet, And rise again upon your feet. Then followed the game-rhyme, repeated with each stanza-- Go choose you east, go choose you west, apparently the same as last four lines of Sheffield version. 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 s gone? He then recognises 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 recognise 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. This version seems to indicate clearly that in this game we have preserved one of the ceremonies of a now obsolete marriage-custom--namely, the disguising of the bride and placing her among her bridesmaids and other young girls, all having veils or other coverings alike over their heads and bodies. The bridegroom has to select from among these maidens the girl whom he wished to marry, or whom he had already married, for until this was done he was not allowed to depart with his bride.
If the eldest hand accepts, he pushes into the pool as many counters as he is bid, and the successful bidder pitches the trump. If no bid is made, the eldest hand must pitch the trump himself. A bidder is not allowed to give the seller enough points to put him out, and should he do so by mistake, he forfeits his right to bid at all for that deal. If the seller has only two to go, and a player is able to bid three or four, he loses nothing by bidding one only, for no one can overbid him, and he is entitled to count all he makes. The only risk he runs is that the seller can afford to refuse one, and will go out on his own pitch. To remedy this it is the custom in some clubs to allow a player to bid the full value of his hand. If the seller accepts, he scores to within one of game; but if he refuses, he must make as many as bid, even if he does not actually want them. It is one of the fine points of the game for the seller to refuse when the number of points offered would put the bidder out if he was successful. There is no penalty for bidding out of turn. If a player chooses to expose to a preceding player what he is prepared to bid, that is usually to his own disadvantage.
383). Halliwell (_Nursery Rhymes_, p. 98) has a version, and Rimbault (_Nursery Rhymes_) gives both words and tune. It is also contained in _The Merrie Heart_ (p. 47). See Jolly Hooper, Jolly Rover. Here comes One Virgin Here comes one Virgin on her knee, On her knee, on her knee, Here comes one Virgin on her knee, Pray what will you give her? When did you come? I came by night and I came by day, I came to steal poor Edie away. She is too old, she is too young, She hasn t learnt her virgin tongue. Let her be old or let her be young, For her beauty she must come. In her pocket a thousand pounds, On her finger a gay gold ring.
=_ This is hardly a variation of the game of Draughts, although it is played on a checker board. Four white men, the tailors, are placed upon 29 30 31 and 32; and one black man, the devil, on 1. The men can move only one square at a time, diagonally; the white men forward only, the black man forward or backward. There is no jumping or capturing, and the object of the tailors is to pin the devil in, so that he cannot move. If the black man can reach the free country behind the white men, he wins the game. The game is a certainty for the white men if properly played. At the end of four moves they should be lined up on squares 25, 26, 27, 28 and whichever end the devil attacks, the tailors should move in from the other end. There are two critical positions. [Illustration: No. 13.
Curly Locks. Currants and Raisins. Cushion Dance. Cutch a Cutchoo. Cutters and Trucklers. DAB. Dab-an-thricker. Dab-at-the-hole. Dalies. Davie-drap.
E. Twemlow). I. Have you seen the muffin man, the muffin man, the muffin man, Have you seen the muffin man that lives in Drury Lane O? Yes, I ve seen the muffin man, the muffin man, the muffin man; Yes, I ve seen the muffin man who lives in Drury Lane O. --Earls Heaton, Yorks. (H. Hardy). II. O, have you seen the muffin man, The muffin man, the muffin man; O, have you seen the muffin man Who lives in Drury Lane O? --N. W.
For instance: A player holding the Nine, and having to play to his adversary’s lead, may win the trick with the turn-up card, leaving the Nine in its place, provided he has won some previous trick. There is no count for dix, as in Bézique and Binocle, and the player is not obliged to exchange unless he wishes to do so. If the Nine is the last card in the stock, it is, of course, too late to exchange it, and the player drawing it must keep it. _=Marriages.=_ If a player holds both King and Queen of any suit, he may count 20 points towards 66 for the marriage, or 40 for royal marriage, by leading either of the marriage cards. It is not necessary for the King or Queen so led to win the trick; but the player declaring a marriage must have the lead, and must have won a trick, or he cannot count it. The pone may declare a marriage on his first lead; but it will not count unless he wins some subsequent trick, and if his adversary gets to 66 before the pone gets a trick, the marriage is lost, and the pone is schwartz. If the 20 or 40 claimed for the marriage is enough to carry the player’s count to 66 or beyond, the marriage need only be shown and claimed, without leading it, and the remaining cards are then abandoned, provided the count is correct. Only one marriage can be shown but not led in this manner. In the ordinary course of play it is not necessary to show both cards of the marriage unless the adversary asks to see them.
When the play of the hand is finished and the cards replaced in the tray, the dealer puts his trump slip on the top of his cards. The four hands can then be conveniently carried or handed to any other table to be overplayed. [Illustration: VARIOUS APPARATUS FOR DUPLICATE.] _=SCORING.=_ There should be two score-cards at each table. The various methods of putting down and comparing the scores can best be described in connection with the variety of competition to which they belong. It is a common practice to note the trump card on the score sheets. _=POSITION OF THE PLAYERS.=_ The four players at each table are distinguished by the letters N S E W; North and South being partners against East and West. West should always be the dealer in the first hand, North having the original lead.
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It is remarkable, too, that the Witch should want to borrow a light from the fire; the objection to the giving of fire out of the house is a well-known and widely-diffused superstition, the possession of a brand from the house-fire giving power to the possessor over the inmates of a house. The mention of the spitting on the hearth in the Sheffield version, and dirtying the hearth in the London version, give confirmation to the theory that the desecration of the fire or hearth is the cause of the pot boiling over, and that the spirit of the hearth or fire is offended at the sacrilege. The Witch, too, may be unable to get possession of a child until she has something belonging to the house. The journey of the Mother to the Witch s house in search of her children, the obstacles put in her path, and the mention of the spilling of blood on the threshold, are incidents which have great significance. Why the keeling or skimming of the contents of the pot should be so difficult a task for the eldest daughter that the Mother is obliged to come herself, is not so clear; the skimming is of course to prevent the pot boiling over, and the pot may be supposed to take the place of the Mother or Guardian of the hearth, and tell when misfortune or trouble is at hand. Or the boiling over (which, if continued, would extinguish the fire and sully the stone) may be an offence to the hearth spirit, who ceases then to protect the inmates of the house. Fairies are said to have power over the inmates of a house when the threshold and kitchen utensils are left dirty and uncared for. Thus on the theories accompanying the ancient house ritual, this extraordinary game assumes a rational aspect, and it is not too much to suggest that this explanation is the correct one. In the game of Witch practically the same incidents occur, and nearly the same dialogue, but the significant elements of pot-boiling and fire-protection do not appear in that game. It is not certain whether we have two independent games, or whether The Witch is this game, the incidents of pot-boiling and the fire-protection having been lost in its transmission to more modern notions.
If he plays Queen on a Ten led, he has no more. If he plays Ace on a King led, he has the Jack alone, or no more. If the Second Hand plays King first round on a small card led, he has Ace also, or no more. If he plays Ace under the same conditions, he has no more. [See Minneapolis Lead.] If a suit is led, and neither Third nor Fourth Hand has a card in it above a Nine, the original leader must have A Q 10, and the second player K J. When neither Third nor Fourth Hand holds a card above the Ten, the major and minor tenaces are divided between the leader and the Second Hand. If it can be inferred that the leader held five cards in the suit originally, he holds the minor tenace. When a player, not an American leader, begins with a Jack and wins the trick, the adversaries may conclude that his partner had two small cards with the Ace, and had not four trumps and another winning card. When a good player changes his suit, he knows that it will not go round again, or that the command is against him.
The three is the better lead. _=Following Suit.=_ The caller should usually play a card as little inferior as he can to the highest already on the trick. When he has cards of equal value, such as the 5 and 2, the 3 and 4 being already on the table, he should play the lower card of the fourchette; for although it may be said that the fourth player must take the trick, there is no certainty that he will follow suit. When second hand, if there is a choice between two cards, such as the 6 and 2, an intermediate card having been led, it is often a nice point to decide whether or not to risk covering and keeping the deuce. If the deuce is played, it must be remembered that the adversaries will follow with their highest cards, leaving two cards out against the caller, both smaller than the 6. _=Discarding.=_ The misère player should never discard from his long suits. The high cards of short suits, and single intermediate cards, such as 5’s and 6’s, should be got rid of at every opportunity. _=Adversaries of the Misère.
C., by two girls. Their game was not so long nor so complete as the above. They did not throw all four stones down as a preliminary stage, but began with the second figure, the four gobs being placed in a square ::, nor were they particular as to which stones they picked up. They knew nothing of numbering or naming them. Their marble was called a jack. They had places chalked on the pavement where they recorded their successful goes, and the game was played in a ring.--A. B. Gomme.
The child in the centre says the second, fourth, and alternate verses, and the game is played as above, except that when the Mother has said the last verse the children call out, Good job, too, and run off, the Mother chasing them as above. The game does not appear to be sung. (_c_) This game is somewhat of a cumulative story, having for its finish the making angry and tormenting of a mother. All the versions point to this. One interesting point, that of milk-pails, is, it will be seen, gradually losing ground in the rhymes. Milk-pails were pails of wood suspended from a yoke worn on the milkmaid s shoulders, and these have been giving place to present-day milk-cans. Consequently we find in the rhymes only four versions in which milk-pails are used. In two versions even the sense of milking-can has been lost, and the South Shields version, sent me by little Miss Blair, has degenerated into male-scales, a thoroughly meaningless phrase. The Cowes version (Miss Smith) has arrived at wash-pan. The burden of the Chirbury version is a rea, a ria, a roses, and the Sheffield version is also remarkable: the I, O, OM refers, probably, to something now forgotten, or it may be the Hi, Ho, Ham! familiar in many nursery rhymes.
_=SUGGESTIONS FOR GOOD PLAY.=_ The chief counting elements that are affected by the play being the trump Ten and the cards, it is usual to devote particular attention to winning them. With J A of trumps, or A K, it is best to lead two rounds immediately; but with a tenace, such as J K, or A Q it is better to place the lead on your left if possible. The high cards in the plain suits are capable of being very skilfully managed in this matter of placing the lead. It sometimes happens that a player with the Ten may be fourth hand on a suit of which he has none; or he may catch the Ten with a small honour if it is used in trumping in. The partnership games offer many fine opportunities for playing the Ten into the partner’s hand, especially when it is probable that he has the best trump, or a better trump than the player on the left. In calculating the probabilities of saving the Ten by trumping in, it must be remembered that the greater the number of players, the less chance there is that a suit will go round more than once, because there are only nine cards of each suit in play. Many players, in their anxiety to catch the Ten, overlook the possibilities of their hands in making cards, the count for which often runs into high figures. Close attention should be paid to the score. For instance: A wants 4 points to win; B wants 10; and C wants 16.