Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/81

 Bibliographical Notes. 73

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES.

BOOKS.

The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland. With tunes, singing-rhymes, and methods of playing according to the variants extant and recorded in different parts of the kingdom. Collected and annotated by Alice Bertha Gomme. Vol. II. Together with a me- moir on the study of children's games. London : D. Nutt. 1898. Pp. xv, 531,

This second volume of games, which forms the first part of Mr. Gomme's proposed " Dictionary of British Folk-Lore," completes a long-postponed and much needed task. So slender was the gathering of such games in Great Britain, that when the writer of this notice, in 1883, made a similar collection under the name of " Games and Songs of American Children," it appeared that many rhymes current in America were unrecorded in the mother country. The inference seemed to be that colonial life had been favorable to peculiar persistency of usage. The further collection, how- ever, now made by Mrs. Gomme, shows that English survivals are abun- dant, and that the correspondence of American and British custom extends to the verbal form. No doubt there has been a constant influence through continued emigration, tending to assimilate the former to the latter. The same diffusion has been active in England, and alone can explain the coin- cidence of the words of a game in districts remote from one another. If the tradition had been isolated, and maintained without change from ancient time, the diversity must have been far greater. The same remark, in a wider field, must account for the resemblance of English and French practice. In truth, the games of Western Europe, like other folk-lore, form a whole in such wise that the habit of one district cannot be taken by itself as spontaneous or independent.

Of the games given in this second volume, a few may be selected as sub- jects for remark. The series begins with the song so familiar in the United States, in the ungrammatical rhyme " Oats, pease, beans, and barley grows." English versions are nearly identical, but the word " pease " is

not included : —

Oats and beans and barley grow !

Oats and beans and barley grow !

Do you or I or any one know

How oats and beans and barley grow ?

First the farmer sows his seed,

Then he stands and takes his ease,

Stamps his foot, and claps his hands,

Then turns round to view the land.

Waiting for a partner, waiting for a partner!

Open the ring and take one in !

The " amatory chorus " proceeds in the same way as in America : —

Now you are married you must obey, You must be true to all you say,

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