Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/179

Rh day. A Bible was placed at the head of the table, and in the centre the bottle with pipes and tobacco. This was a strange survival of Catholic times, and handed down through the service of the mass for the dead.

Fascinating bits of folk-lore linger in names occurring in the play-time of life. Of school, which had never meant much to him, there was but the phrase, "Foo munny pandies did ee get the day?" For the ferule or leather taws he knew taurds. The Aberdeenshire word is tag. The boys' slate-pencil was skylie, the skeelyie of Fife. Only two play-terms he noted—herryin the peer man, and duckie. The former is smuggle the gag, equivalent in signification, for to herry is to run off with, to plunder, the gag or pledge (Lat. vas, a surety; Sc. wad-set, a mortgage). The peer man is the little man, the counter in this game of prehistoric man-hunting. The English barley-break is but another name for it. In Thomas Morley's "Book of Ballets" (1595) is the couplet,—

Duckie seems to have been a sort of variation of rounders. A pointed stone was placed on the ground, and a smaller one on top of it. Beside it stood duckie or man in charge, while the others (outs) stood at intervals around. Each tried to knock off the top stone (also known as duckie). None must run till duckie was knocked off. If hit off, the outs tried to pick up duckie, and run to pass out of play. Duckie in charge had to put on the stone again and try to catch a relief. The outs had to do nothing till he put on the stone. In "Elgin Kirk Session Records" (Dr. Cramond) there is an unexplained reference to this game under the name of Duchman, apparently for Duckie Man. In the domestic series the most important piece of furniture was of old the deas (dais). Mr. Ross knew it as the big seat at the side of the house, to hold four, and not as the fireside settle. The term is well known over Aberdeenshire: "Seated in the deeee in Johnnie Gibb's kitchen " (Johnnie Gibb of Gushetneuk). In the kitchen he noted the vessel-board above the dresser, the saut-backet, and the meal girnel, a large, oblong chest. Round the front of the box beds against the wall hung the pawn, Fife