Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 16, 1905.djvu/102

 8o Collectanea.

appears in the statement that "for luck" between entertainer and entertained, the tongs should be placed under the pillow of a guest.

The special observances of Hallowe'en have not been included among games, as they seem in fact, though now perhaps regarded as amusements, to be in origin religious rites. The following is given as being practised in Harris independently of any special anniversary :

Two selected stalks of bent- grass are named respectively after a girl and a lad known to those who are present and who are suspected of being favourably affected one towards the other. The stalks are laid side by side in the hot ashes, and regard is had to how they burn. If they burn together and equally, those represented are to be married. If only one burns the person represented desires marriage, the other does not. If neither burn, it is clear there is no love between them.

BALL GAMES.

(P. 7, at the bottom.)

A nearly similar game is called

Cluich an Righ. (The King's Play.)

If there are twelve players eleven points are marked, say with a stone, and a player stands at each. They are disposed in a circle and the twelfth, provided with a ball, stands in the centre. He gives a signal, and the others have to change their stations while he tries to strike one with the ball. If he is successful, the one struck and the thrower change places. If by any chance one of the runners does not move at the signal, he must take the centre, even if not struck with the ball ; two players cannot occupy the same station at the same time.

(P. 9, after line 24,)

A game started in the same way as " Bonnety " is

Purley Houses.

He into whose bonnet the ball has been thrown having struck another player, the one struck puts a small stone in his own