Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/103

 Collectanea. 87

stick, walked stolidly round in a circle, and said in a monotonous tone,—

" A room, a room, brave gallants all. Please give me room to rhyme, I am come this merry Christmas time, To show you activity, activity, Such as has never been seen before. Come in, the French officer."

/■/-£//.// orn.-:r: — '' I am the French officer, officer I,

Many long fields I have battled to try.

So guard thy head and mind thy blows, head, face also.

So a battle, a battle, betwixt thee and I,

To see which shall be on the ground dead first. Shall I ? "

( They then flight, and the first speaker is 'uounded. ) " Come in. Doctor Airo."

"See, sir, here comes the noble Doctor Airo; he don't go travelling about like other quack doctors do ; he has got a sign to cure, not to kill,"

Doctor : — " I've got a little box of pills to cure

The hock, the pock, the palsy, and the gout,

Pains within, and pains without.

I can cure this man if he ain't quite dead.

So, noble fellow, raise up thy head,

And fight again once more.

Come in. Jack Finny."

Jack Finny. — "■Jack Finny's not my name,

But Mister Finny is my name.

Don't you know Fm a man of very great fame?

Last year when I came here,

Vou never asked me to taste your beer,

Now I have come with my bladder and broom.

To sweep the cobwebs from your room."

Jack Finny was dressed as a clown, and carried a bladder attached to a long piece of string, with which he used to strike the heads of the other performers, for the amusement of the audience.

On the 29th of May everyone was supposed to wear a piece of oak, called "shick-shack," and anyone not wearing it was liable to be stung with stinging-nettles. The old saying was, — "Twenty- ninth of May, shick-shack day."' In the afternoon in Oxford the shick-shack was discarded, and monkey-powder or leaves of the ash was put in its place, and in the evening both emblems had to