Ball and Bonnets [Illustration: Fig. 1.] [Illustration: Fig. 2.] This is a boys game. The players may be of any number. They place their caps or bonnets in a row. One of the boys takes a ball, and from a fixed point, at a few yards distance from the bonnets, tries to throw it into one of the caps (fig. 1). If the ball falls into the cap, all the boys, except the one into whose cap the ball has fallen, run off.
This seems to be the most general tune for the game. The Lancashire tune is the same as the London version. Miss Burne says of the Madeley version: I never knew Green Gravel and Wallflowers played together as in this way elsewhere (I had not got this variant when I wrote _Shropshire Folk-lore_), except at Much Wenlock, where they reverse the two verses, and only sing _one line_ (the last) of Green Gravel. But I feel sure they must have been _meant_ to go together (see my note in _Shropshire Folk-lore_, p. 510), and I can explain them, I think. The ring of girls are dancing on the green grass plot in the middle of an old-fashioned sixteenth-century walled garden: each gets the news of her lover s death, and turns her face to the wall, the old token of hopeless sorrow. Then they apostrophise the wallflowers in the border surrounding the grass plot against the old high wall; and here another variant explains the lament (second line)-- Wallflowers, wallflowers, growing up so high, _We shall all be maidens_ [and so], we shall all die; Except the youngest (who will meet with another lover), whether as an instance of the proverbial luck of the youngest born, or as a piece of juvenile giddiness and inconstancy, I cannot say; but considering the value set on true love and hopeless constancy in the ballad-lore, and the special garland which distinguished the funerals of bereaved but constant maidens, and the solemnity of betrothal in old days, the latter seems probable, especially considering the for shame. The incidents of _washing_ a corpse in milk and _dressing_ it in silk occur in Burd Ellen, Jamieson s _Ballads_, p. 125. Tak up, tak up my bonny young son, Gar _wash_ him wi the _milk_; Tak up, tak up my fair lady, Gar row her in the _silk_.
2 should throw a four and two sixes, for instance, he would count nothing himself, but No. 4 would count 1, and No. 6 would count 2 points toward game. PASSE DIX. Any player can be the banker for the first round, and he holds his position as long as he wins. When he loses, he passes the box to the player on his left hand. He has three dice, which he throws in one cast, after the players have made their bets. If he gets ten or more, he wins. If he gets less than ten, he loses. His advantage lies in winning when he gets ten exactly; because that gives him nine throws that win for him out of the sixteen possible with three dice.
3--Battle of Hook s Farm. Position of both Armies after first move.] (3) The subsequent moves after the putting down are timed. The length of time given for each move is determined by the size of the forces engaged. About a minute should be allowed for moving 30 men and a minute for each gun. Thus for a force of 110 men and 3 guns, moved by one player, seven minutes is an ample allowance. As the battle progresses and the men are killed off, the allowance is reduced as the players may agree. The player about to move stands at attention a yard behind his back line until the timekeeper says Go. He then proceeds to make his move until time is up. He must instantly stop at the cry of Time.
LANARKSHIRE-- Biggar Mr. Wm. Ballantyne. Lanark Mr. W. G. Black. NAIRN-- Nairn Rev. W. Gregor.
If any card is found exposed in the pack, there must be a new deal. If a card faced in the stock is not discovered until the first trick has been played to by the dealer, the exposed card must be turned face down, without disturbing its position. If the pack is found to be imperfect, the deal in which it is discovered is void; but all previous scores and cuts made with that pack stand good. In all misdeals the same dealer deals again. _=METHOD OF PLAYING.=_ After the trump is turned, the pone begins by leading any card he pleases. The second player is not obliged to follow suit, nor to trump; but may renounce or trump at pleasure until the stock is exhausted, after which the method of play undergoes a change. If the second player follows suit in any trick, the higher card wins. Trumps win plain suits. If identical cards are played to the same trick, such as two club Jacks, the leader wins.
Playboy, the Jack of trumps at Spoil Five. Plain Suits, those which are not trumps. Point, F., the suit containing the greatest number of pips. Pone, the player on the dealer’s right, who cuts the cards. Ponte, F., one who plays against the banker. Post Mortems, discussions as to what might have been at Whist, sometimes called, “If you hads.” Pot, strictly speaking, the amount to be played for when a pool has exceeded a certain limit, especially in Spoil Five and Boston. Premier en Cartes, F.
When a whist-player reaches that point, he is probably as near the first class as the natural limitations of his mental abilities will ever permit him to go. _=THE LAWS=_ will be found at the end of the Whist Family of Games. ILLUSTRATIVE WHIST HANDS. A and B are partners against Y and Z. A is always the original leader, and Z is the dealer. The underlined card wins the trick, and the card under it is the next one led. _=No. 1. Long Suits=_; | T| _=No. 3.
[Music] --Lancashire (Mrs. Harley). [Music] --Earls Heaton, Yorks. (H. Hardy). I. I sent a letter to my love, And on the way I dropped it; And one of you have picked it up And put it in your pocket. --Dorsetshire (_Folk-lore Journal_, vii. 213); Penzance (Mrs. Mabbott).
See Namers and Guessers. Hen and Chicken Chickery, chickery, cranny crow, I went to the well to wash my toe, When I got back a chicken was dead. This verse is said by the Hen to her Chickens, after which they all go with the Hen to search for the dead Chicken. On their way they meet the Fox. The following dialogue between the Fox and Hen ensues, the Hen beginning:-- What are you doing? Picking up sticks. What for? To make a fire. What s the fire for? To boil some water. What s the water for? To boil some chickens in. Where do you get them from? Out of your flock. That I m sure you won t.
He is not restricted as to suit, but must play all he has in sequence, and then name the card that he fails on. If a new sequence is opened by any player, he must play the lowest card of the suit in his hand. If, in the course of play, any of the four cards on the layout can be got rid of, the player holding them takes the pool on that card. If he is left with the card in his hand at the end he is not obliged to double the pool, as at Pope Joan, but simply loses his chance to win it, and it remains until the next deal. The first player to get rid of all his cards receives one counter from the other players for each card they hold. _=SPIN=_ is Newmarket, with one variation. The player holding the diamond ace is allowed to play it in order to get the privilege of stopping one suit and opening another. For instance: The sequence in spades has run to the Nine, and one player holds both spade Ten and diamond ace. If this player saw that another was very likely to win the game at any moment, and he had a pool card to play, he might stop the spade sequence by playing both the Ten and the diamond ace together, announcing _=Spin=_. He can then play a pool card, or begin a new sequence with the lowest of the suit in his hand.
V. Darby and Joan were dressed in black, Sword and buckle behind their back. Foot for foot, and knee for knee, Turn about Darby s company. --Halliwell s _Nursery Rhymes_, p. 121. (_b_) The children form pairs, one pair following the other, with their arms linked behind. While the first four lines are repeated by all, they skip forward, and then skip back again. At the end of the last line they turn themselves about without loosing hands. (_c_) Miss Burne includes this among obscure and archaic games, and Halliwell-Phillips mentions it as a marching game. The three first versions have something of the nature of an incantation, while the fourth and fifth versions may probably belong to another game altogether.
The Poker Book, by Richard Guerndale, 1888. The Gentlemen’s Handbook of Poker, by J.W. Florence, 1892. Poker Rules in Rhyme, by Geo. W. Allen, 1895. Science of Draw Poker, by David A. Curtis, 1901. Poker, Brentano’s Pocket Library Series, by R.
There was a Someone who fought Little Wars in the days of Queen Anne; a garden Napoleon. His game was inaccurately observed and insufficiently recorded by Laurence Sterne. It is clear that Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim were playing Little Wars on a scale and with an elaboration exceeding even the richness and beauty of the contemporary game. But the curtain is drawn back only to tantalise us. It is scarcely conceivable that anywhere now on earth the Shandean Rules remain on record. Perhaps they were never committed to paper.... And in all ages a certain barbaric warfare has been waged with soldiers of tin and lead and wood, with the weapons of the wild, with the catapult, the elastic circular garter, the peashooter, the rubber ball, and such-like appliances--a mere setting up and knocking down of men.
=_ If the player touches the cue-ball more than once in any way, or hinders or accelerates it in any other way than by a legitimate stroke of the cue; or if, during a stroke or after it, he in any way touches, hinders, or accelerates an object-ball, except by the one stroke of the cue-ball to which he is entitled. _=8.=_ As touching any ball _in any way_ is a stroke, a second touch is a foul. _=9.=_ It is a foul against the striker if any ball be disturbed, hastened, or hindered by an opponent or any one but himself, whether the ball or balls are at rest while he is aiming or striking, in motion after he has struck, or at rest again after he has struck, and pending his again taking aim. _=10.=_ Should a ball that has once come to a standstill move without apparent cause, while the player is preparing to strike, it shall be replaced. Should it move before he can check his stroke, it, and all other balls set in motion by that stroke, shall be replaced, and the player shall repeat his shot, inasmuch as but for the moving of the ball, he might have counted where he missed, or missed where he counted. _=11.=_ It is a foul if the striker plays directly at any ball with which his own is in fixed contact, and the striker must in this instance play from balls spotted, as in the opening stroke of the game.