Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 16, 1905.djvu/245

 Collectanea. 207

Two are working in conjunction. One of these undertakes to tell to whom a knife, say, is given by the other while he is out of the room. The challenger retires, the knife is handed by his accomplice, who then recalls the challenger, who then proceeds to examine the others as if looking for indications he requires to notice, to come to a correct conclusion. During this examination the one who handed the knife interrupts with remarks such as : " I did not give it to you." " It was not to you I gave it." After a pause "and I did not give it to you." The challenger notices this and waits for his own time to say to the person sitting on the right of the one last addressed by his accomplice, " You have the knife," it having been agreed on that the conjunction and will be addressed to the person sitting on the left of the one who has the knife.

If a company can induce one of their number to undertake to guess what something in the room agreed on by the other players is, he is asked to retire till " it " is fixed on. This being done, the guesser returns and commences questioning the others for indica- tions. But it having been arranged that "it" is the person sitting on the left of the one being questioned at the moment, and the questioner must not ask only one person, generally speaking the answers become so contradictory that it is impossible for the questioner to say that any individual thing is " it."

COUNTING OUT RHYME.

(P. 102, after line 5.)

In addition to the counting-out rhymes detailed in the Appendix, p. 248, we have the following from Barra —

Feile-goirid os a chionn, Sud an rud a thogadh fonn, Biodag Dhomhnuill mhic Alasdair."
 * ' Gille beag 's cota donn

Little lad and brown coat/A short kilt above him, /That's the

thing would raise desire (carnal) (tune)/ Donald MacAlister's

dirk.

(See p. 96 for a translation.)