Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/363

 Collectanea. 327

conjecture I was capable of. My description must thus have been subject to grave suspicion, and it is satisfactory to have it confirmed from this unexpected quarter.

When I compared this trick with that obtained by Dr. Cun- nington from the Yao of the Shire highlands (No. 2, Cunnington, in J. A. I., vol. xxxvi., Jan. -June, 1906), I had not seen Mr. Dudley Kidd's description of the Basutoland string-trick quoted by Dr. Haddon in the same number of the journal. The latter, as far as I understand it, seems to me to be practically the same as this Rumanian example. It may be noticed that there is a kind of elementary juggling in both which distinguishes them from the Yao trick, in which the effect depends entirely on the properties of a loop of string.

No. 2 is another application of the Watch-Guard hitch. I imagine it to be a simple form of the Hand string-trick of which I gave two descriptions (vol. xvii., pp. 367, 368). The essential movements are identical, but as the Rumanian trick has no move corresponding to that by which both strings are passed round the thumb in the English trick, attention is diverted by closing the thumb and finger, which thus represents the ring fixed to a wall or immovable block. If the ring thus made by the fingers be considered to be a watch handle the whole person represents the watch ; and a somewhat ludicrous reversion of the trick may be made with a sufficiently long loop, thus : — Give the right index loop to another person to hold ; close the finger and thumb above both strings, and offer to free the fixed end of the loop which lies on the palmar aspect of the thumb and index. This may be done by pulling down the palmar string, stepping through that end of the loop and passing it up over the head. It will then pull clear.

No. 3 is the same as the trick which, following Dr. Weir, I have called the Mouse Alternative. It is the variety credited to Miss Hingston in my article (vol. xvii., pp. 369, 370).

No. 4 is an interesting variety of the Button-hole trick (p. 353). I should guess it to be a more primitive form than the one I have described. The latter is characterised by a sleight-of- hand — a feature which, as far as I recollect, it shares with only two other tricks — the well-known " Threading-the-needle " and