Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/181

 , and the mummings about Christmas. Barley-brake was an ancient rural game, described by Gifford as played by six persons, three of each sex, who were coupled by lot. A piece of ground was then chosen, and divided into three compartments, of which the middle one was called hell. The couple condemned to this division tried to catch the others, who advanced from the two extremities; if they succeeded, hell was filled by the couple excluded by pre-occupation from the other places. In this "catching," however, there was some difficulty, as the middle couple, hand in hand, were not to separate before they had succeeded, whilst the others must break hands whenever they find themselves hard pressed. When all had been taken in turn, the last couple were said to be in hell, and the game ended. There is a description of the game in a little tract called "Barley-breake, or a Warning for Wantons" (4to, Lond. 1607). This game would seem to have left its traces in a boys' game still played in the North of England (especially in the East Riding of Yorkshire), in which a couple link hands, and sally forth from home (the modern substitute for hell), shouting something like "Aggery, ag, ag, ag's gi'en warning," and trying to tick or touch with the free hand any of a number of boys running about separately. These latter try, by slipping behind the linked couple, and throwing their individual weight on the joined hands, to separate them, without being first touched or ticked; and if they sunder the couple, each of the severed ones has to bear a boy "home" on his back. Whoever is touched is condemned to replace the toucher in the linked couple. Shove-groat is a variety of the old game of shovel-board. A shilling or other smooth coin was placed on the extreme edge of the shovel-board, and propelled towards a mark