Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 7 1889.djvu/260

236 a stone as the arm came suddenly against the ribs, or, by a more fantastic trick still, against the thigh of the lifted right leg.

“Saturday afternoon was our only holiday, and in summer bathing in the sea was in vogue on these occasions. We never used the word ‘bathe’ however, but invariably ‘get into water,’ and this strange periphrasis never seemed strange to me until after I had left Poole.”

A correspondent of the Dorset County Chronicle for this present month of May sends a list of games which he had seen the children play in their village playground, but from want of space no details were given. They were: “Orange and Lemon,” “Stag,” “Last Tat,” “Cross Tag,” “Dibs,” “Cobb,” “Hop-Scotch,” “Fool, fool, go to School,” “Cat and Dog,” “High Cock-a-lorum,” “Cat in Hole,” “Puss in the Corner,” “Pat Back,” “Poor Mary’s a-weeping,” “Here comes a Duke a-riding,” “Who’s that walking round my Sheepfold?” The above were more often played by the girls than the boys, whose games were played all over the country. He says that the following games he had seen played by the village lads in such a hearty manner as only country boys could: “Hockey,” which he believes was sometimes called “Bantey” (? Bandy), “Prisoner’s Base” (sometimes called “Chivoy,” or “Chevy,” or “Courage”), this being a capital game to bring out a boy’s mettle, “Leap-frog,” “Blind Man’s Buff,” “Duck-stone” “Follow the Leader,” and last but not least “Marbles” and “Tops.” The boys used string-tops, not whip. Of course the nobler games of “Cricket” and “Fox and Hounds” ought to be mentioned, though “Cricket” was too slow for the village lads, who much preferred the more dashing game of “Tip and Run.”

Of the above games several of them will be found in detail in this paper, some of them under other names; for the rest, especially those which may be uncommon or curious, I can only regret that fuller and better particulars of them are not forthcoming.

The class of games known as indoor games was generally played at Christmastide or in the long winter evenings, but occasionally these