Lark Rise - Flora Thompson (read more books .TXT) 📗

sure she’s fit to walk with a king.

 

For ‘Isabella’ a ring was formed with one of the players standing alone

in the centre. Then circling slowly, the girls sang:

 

Isabella, Isabella, Isabella, farewell.

Last night when we parted

I left you broken-hearted,

And on the green gravel there stands a young man.

 

Isabella, Isabella, Isabella, farewell.

Take your choice, love, take your choice, love,

Take your choice, love. Farewell.

 

The girl in the middle of the ring then chose another who took up her

position inside with her, while the singers continued:

 

Put the banns up, put the banns up,

Put the banns up. Farewell.

Come to church, love, come to church, love. Farewell.

 

Put the ring on, put the ring on,

Put the ring on. Farewell.

 

Come to supper, love, come to supper, love,

Come to supper, love. Farewell.

 

Now to bed, love, now to bed, love,

Now to bed, love. Farewell.

 

With other instructions, all of which were carried out in dumb show by

the couple in the middle of the ring. Having got the pair wedded and

bedded, the spirit of the piece changed. The stately game became a romp.

Jumping up and down, still with joined hands, round the two in the

middle, the girls shouted:

 

Now they’re married we wish them joy,

First a girl and then a boy,

Sixpence married sevenpence’s daughter,

Kiss the couple over and over.

 

In that game the Isabella of the sad farewell to whom the sweet

plaintive tune of the rhyme originally belonged had somehow got mixed up

in a country courtship and wedding.

 

A pretty, graceful game to watch was ‘Thread the Tailor’s Needle’. For

this two girls joined both hands and elevated them to form an arch or

bridge, and the other players, in single file and holding on to each

other’s skirts, passed under, singing:

 

Thread the tailor’s needle,

Thread the tailor’s needle.

The tailor’s blind and he can’t see,

So thread the tailor’s needle.

 

As the end of the file passed under the arch the last two girls detached

themselves, took up their stand by the original two and joined their

hands and elevated them, thus widening the arch, and this was repeated

until the arch became a tunnel. As the file passing under grew shorter,

the tune was quickened, until, towards the end, the game became a merry

whirl.

 

A grim little game often played by the younger children was called

‘Daddy’. For this a ring was formed, one of the players remaining

outside it, and the outside player stalked stealthily round the silent

and motionless ring and chose another girl by striking her on the

shoulder. The chosen one burst from the ring and rushed round it,

closely pursued by the first player, the others chanting meanwhile:

 

Round a ring to catch a king,

Round a ring to catch a king,

Round a ring to catch a king–-

 

and, as the pursuer caught up with the pursued and struck her neck with

the edge of her hand:

 

Down falls Daddy!

 

At the stroke on the neck the second player fell flat on the turf,

beheaded, and the game continued until all were stretched on the turf.

 

Round what ring, to catch what king? And who was Daddy? Was the game

founded on some tale dished up for the commonalty of the end of one who

‘nothing common did or mean’? The players did not know or care, and we

can only guess.

 

‘Honeypots’ was another small children’s game. For this the children

squatted down with their hands clasped tightly under their buttocks and

two taller girls approached them, singing:

 

Honeypots, honeypots, all in a row!

Who will buy my honeypots, O?

 

One on each side of a squatting child, they ‘tried’ it by swinging by

the arms, the child’s hands still being clasped under its buttocks. If

the hands gave way, the honeypot was cast away as broken; if they held,

it was adjudged a good pot.

 

A homely game was ‘The Old Woman from Cumberland’. For this a row of

girls stood hand in hand with a bigger one in the middle to represent

the old woman from Cumberland. Another bigger girl stood alone a few

paces in front. She was known as the ‘mistress’. Then the row of girls

tripped forward, singing:

 

Here comes an old woman from Cumberland

With all her children in her hand.

And please do you want a servant to-day?

 

‘What can they do?’ demanded the mistress as they drew up before her.

Then the old woman of Cumberland detached herself and walked down the

row, placing a hand on the heads of one after another of her children as

she said:

 

This can brew, and this can bake,

This can make a wedding cake,

This can wear a gay gold ring,

This can sit in the barn and sing,

This can go to bed with a king,

And this one can do everything.

 

‘Oh! I will have that one’, said the mistress, pointing to the one who

could do everything, who then went over to her. The proceedings were

repeated until half the girls had gone over, when the two sides had a

tug-of-war.

 

‘The Old Woman from Cumberland’ was a brisk, business-like game; but

most of the rhymes of the others were long-drawn-out and sad, and

saddest of all was ‘Poor Mary is Aweeping’, which went:

 

Poor Mary is aweeping, aweeping, aweeping,

Poor Mary is aweeping on a bright summer’s day.

 

And what’s poor Mary aweeping for, aweeping for, aweeping for?

Oh, what’s poor Mary aweeping for on a bright summer’s day?

 

She’s weeping for her own true love on a bright summer’s own true love.

She’s weeping for her own true love on a bright summer’s day.

 

Then let her choose another love, another love, another love.

Then let her choose another love on a bright summer’s day.

 

‘Waly, Waly, Wallflower’ ran ‘Poor Mary’ close in gentle melancholy; but

the original verse in this seems to have broken down after the fourth

line. The Lark Rise version ran:

 

Waly, waly, wallflower, growing up so high.

We’re all maidens, we must all die,

Excepting So-and-So [_naming one of the players_]

And she’s the youngest maid.

 

Then, the tune changing to a livelier air:

 

She can hop and she can skip,

She can play the candlestick,

Fie! Fie! Fie!

Turn your face to the wall again.

 

All clasping hands and jumping up and down:

 

All the boys in this town

Lead a happy life,

Excepting So-and-So [_naming some hamlet boy, not necessarily present_]

And he wants a wife.

A wife he shall have and a-courting he shall go,

Along with So-and-So; because he loves her so.

 

He kissed her, he cuddled her, he sat her on his knee,

And he said ‘My dearest So-and-So, how happy we shall be.’

First he bought the frying-pan and then he bought the cradle

And then he bought the knives and forks and set them on the table.

 

So-and-So made a pudding, she made it very sweet,

She daren’t stick the knife in till So-and-So came home at night.

Taste, So-and-So, taste, and do not be afraid,

Next Monday morning the wedding day shall be,

And the cat shall sing and the bells shall ring

And we’ll all clap hands together.

 

Evidently in the course of the centuries ‘Waly, Waly, Wallflower’ had

become mixed with something else. The youngest maid of the first verse

would never have played the candlestick or been courted by such a lover.

Her destiny was very different. But what?

 

‘Green Gravel’ was another ring game. The words were:

 

Green gravel, green gravel, the grass is so green,

The fairest young damsel that ever was seen,

Sweet So-and-So, sweet So-and-So, your true love is dead,

I send you a letter, so turn round your head.

 

And as each name was mentioned the bearer turned outwards from the

middle of the ring and, still holding hands with the others, went on

revolving. When all had turned, the girls jigged up and down, shouting:

 

Bunch o’ rags! Bunch o’ rags! Bunch o’ rags!

 

until all fell down.

 

Then there was ‘Sally, Sally Waters’; who ‘sprinkled in the pan’; and

‘Queen Anne, Queen Anne’, who ‘sat in the sun’. The local version of the

first verse of the latter ran:

 

Queen Anne, Queen Anne, she sat in the sun,

She had a pair of ringlets on.

She shook them off, she shook them on,

She shook them into Scotland.

 

Which seems to suggest that the Queen Anne intended was Anne of Denmark,

consort of our James the First, and not the last of our Stuart monarchs,

as sometimes supposed. When the founders of the new royal house first

arrived in England, there would certainly be gossip about them, and

Queen Anne would most probably be supposed to favour Scotland, Scots,

and things Scottish.

 

The brisk and rather disagreeable little game known as ‘Queen Caroline’

must have been of comparatively recent date. For this two lines of girls

stood facing each other, while one other one ran the gauntlet. As she

dashed between the lines the girls on both sides ‘buffeted’ her with

hands, pinafores and handkerchiefs, singing:

 

Queen, Queen Caroline,

Dipped her head in turpentine.

Why did she look so fine?

Because she wore a crinoline.

 

An echo of the coronation scene of George IV?

 

Contemporary with that was ‘The Sheepfold’, which began:

 

Who’s that going round my sheepfold?

Oh, it’s only your poor neighbour Dick.

Do not steal my sheep while I am fast asleep.

 

But that was not a favourite and no one seemed to know the whole of it.

Then there were ‘How Many Miles to Banbury Town?’, ‘Blind Man’s Buff’,

and many other games. The children could play for hours without

repeating a game.

 

As well as the country games, a few others, probably as old, but better

known, were played by the hamlet children. Marbles, peg-tops, and

skipping-ropes appeared in their season, and when there happened to be a

ball available a game called ‘Tip-it’ was played. There was not always a

ball to be had; for the smallest rubber one cost a penny, and pennies

were scarce. Even marbles, at twenty a penny, were seldom bought,

although there were a good many in circulation, for the hamlet boys were

champion marble players and thought nothing of walking five or six miles

on a Saturday to play with the boys of other villages and replenish

their own store with their winnings. Some of them owned as trophies the

scarce and valued glass marbles, called ‘alleys’. These were of clear

glass enclosing bright, wavy, multicoloured threads, and they looked

very handsome among the dingy-coloured clay ones. The girls skipped with

any odd length of rope, usually a piece of their mothers’ old

clotheslines.

 

A simple form of hopscotch was played, for which three lines, or steps,

enclosed in an oblong were scratched in the dust. The elaborate

hopscotch diagrams, resembling an astrological horoscope, still to be

seen chalked on the roads in the West Country were unknown there.

 

‘Dibs’ was a girls’ game, played with five small, smooth pebbles, which

had to be kept in the air at the same time and caught on the back of the

hand. Laura, who was clumsy with her hands, never mastered this game;

nor could she play marbles or spin tops or catch balls, or play

hopscotch. She was by common consent ‘a duffer’. Skipping and running

were her only accomplishments.

 

Sometimes in the summer the ‘pin-a-sight’ was all the rage, and no girl

would