May not the custom of throwing of old and worn-out shoes after the bride have arisen from the practice of dancing? The danced-out shoes may have been the ones used. It is curious that the cushion is used in the marriage ceremonies of the Brahmins. Mr. Kearns, in his _Marriage Ceremonies of the Hindoos of the South of India_, p. 6, says that a stool or cushion is one of the preparations for the reception of the bridegroom, who on entering the apartment sits down on the stool which is presented to him. He says, I step on this for the sake of food and other benefits, on this variously splendid footstool. The bride s father then presents to him a cushion made of twenty leaves of cúsa grass, holding it up with both hands and exclaiming, The cushion! the cushion! the cushion! The bridegroom replies, I accept the cushion, and taking it, places it on the ground under his feet, while he recites a prayer. It is probable that we may have in the Cushion Dance the last relics of a very ancient ceremony, as well as evidence of the origin of a game from custom. Cutch-a-Cutchoo Children clasp their hands under their knees in a sitting posture, and jump thus about the room. The one who keeps up longest wins the game.
OXFORDSHIRE Aubrey s _Remains_, ed. 1880. Oxford Miss Fowler. Summertown _Midland Garner_, vol. ii. SHROPSHIRE Burne s _Shropshire Folk-lore_. Madeley, Middleton Miss Burne. Tong Miss R. Harley. { Elworthy s _Dialect_, _Somerset and SOMERSETSHIRE { Dorset Notes and Queries_, Holloway s { _Dictionary_.
_=SCORING.=_ A game consists of five points, which are made by tricks, by penalties, and by marking the King. A player winning three tricks out of the five possible, counts one point toward game; winning all five tricks, which is called _=the vole=_, counts two points. The player holding or turning up the King of trumps may mark one point for it, but he is not compelled to do so. If the pone plays without proposing, and makes three or four tricks, he counts one point; if he makes the vole he counts two points; but if he fails to make three tricks the dealer counts two. If the dealer refuses the first proposal, he must make three tricks to count one point; if he makes the vole he counts two points; but if he fails to win three tricks the player who was refused counts two points. If the dealer accepts the first proposal, and gives cards, subsequent proposals and refusals do not affect the score; the winner of the odd trick scoring one point, and the winner of the vole two points. In no case can a player make more than two points in one hand by tricks. If the dealer refuses the first proposal, and the pone makes the vole, it counts two points only. If the pone should play without proposing, and the dealer should mark the King and win the vole, it would count him only three points altogether.
They cut for partners and for the deal; the player cutting the lowest card takes dummy for the first rubber; the one cutting the next lowest takes dummy for the second rubber; and the one cutting the highest takes it for the last rubber. It is considered obligatory to play three rubbers, in order that each may have whatever advantage or disadvantage may be supposed to attach to the dummy. The three rubbers so played are called a Tournée. It is sometimes agreed that one player shall take dummy continuously, on condition that he concedes to his adversaries one point in each rubber. When this is done, the largest rubber that the dummy’s partner can win is one of seven; and he may win nothing; whereas his adversaries may win a rubber of nine, and must win at least two. This concession of a point is not made, as many imagine, because it is an advantage to have the (dummy) partner’s hand exposed; but because it is an advantage to have the player’s hand concealed. He knows the collective contents of the adversaries’ hands; each of them knows only the contents of dummy’s hand and his own. _=Cutting.=_ The player cutting the lowest card has the choice of seats and cards; but he must deal the first hand for his dummy; not for himself. The methods of spreading, cutting, deciding ties, etc.
It is found that A has seven only, while B has twenty-five. This shows B to be the winner of the game, with a total score of 1390 to A’s 1330. If the difference between the final scores is less than 100 points, after adding the brisques and throwing off the fractions, the player with the higher score adds 100 points for bonus. In the case just given, B’s final score is equal to A’s, after dropping the fractions from both; so he would add 100 for bonus to the 500 for game, and win 600 points altogether. _=Rubicons.=_ If the lower score is less than 1000, no matter what the higher score may be, the loser is rubiconed, and all the points he has scored are _added_ to the score of the winner, instead of being deducted. In addition to this, the winner adds a double game, or 1000 points, for the rubicon, and 300 points for all the brisques, no matter who actually won them. For example: A’s score is 920, and B’s 440. It is not necessary to count the brisques to see that A wins and B is rubiconed. A adds B’s 400 to his own 900, making his score 1300, and to this total he adds 1300 for rubicon and brisques, making the value of his game 2600 points altogether.
Solo wins or loses 2 red counters. Misère, or Nullo, wins or loses 3 red counters. Abundance, of any kind, wins or loses 4 red counters. Open Misère, or Spread, wins or loses 6 red counters. Declared Abundance, or Slam, wins or loses 8 red counters. Each Over or Under-trick wins or loses 1 white counter. In Proposal and Acceptance, each of the partners pays one of his adversaries. In all cases in which a single player is opposed to the three others, he wins or loses the amount shown in the foregoing table with each of them individually; so that a single player calling a solo would win or lose 6 red counters. If he lost it, making only four tricks, he would also have to pay to each of his three adversaries a white counter. If he won it, making seven tricks, each of them would have to pay him two red and two white counters.
(_c_) This game is somewhat of a cumulative story, having for its finish the making angry and tormenting of a mother. All the versions point to this. One interesting point, that of milk-pails, is, it will be seen, gradually losing ground in the rhymes. Milk-pails were pails of wood suspended from a yoke worn on the milkmaid s shoulders, and these have been giving place to present-day milk-cans. Consequently we find in the rhymes only four versions in which milk-pails are used. In two versions even the sense of milking-can has been lost, and the South Shields version, sent me by little Miss Blair, has degenerated into male-scales, a thoroughly meaningless phrase. The Cowes version (Miss Smith) has arrived at wash-pan. The burden of the Chirbury version is a rea, a ria, a roses, and the Sheffield version is also remarkable: the I, O, OM refers, probably, to something now forgotten, or it may be the Hi, Ho, Ham! familiar in many nursery rhymes. The game seems to point to a period some time back, when milking was an important phase of the daily life, or perhaps to the time when it was customary for the maids and women of a village to go to the hilly districts with the cows (summer shealings) for a certain period of time. The references to domestic life are interesting.
_=Impérials.=_ Certain combinations of cards are known as impérials, and the player marks one red counter for each of them. The best impérial is carte blanche, which is sometimes marked as a double impérial, and worth two reds. A sequence of K Q J A in any suit is an impérial. An impérial de retourne may be formed in the dealer’s hand if the turn-up trump completes his sequence or makes four of a kind. An impérial tombée, or de rencontre, is made when the player who holds the King and Queen of trumps catches the Jack and Ace from his adversary. Four Kings, Queens, Jacks, Aces, or Sevens in one hand is an impérial; but the Eights, Nines and Tens have no value. _=Declaring.=_ The elder hand announces his point, as in Piquet, and arrives at its value in the same way, reckoning the Ace for 11, etc. The dealer replies, “Good,” or “Not good,” as the case may be; but there are no equalities.
| Oxfordshire. | Sheffield. | +---+----------------------+----------------------+----------------------+ | 1.|Green gravel. |Green gravel. | -- | | 2.| -- | -- |Round the green | | | | |gravel. | | 3.| -- | -- | -- | | 4.| -- | -- | -- | | 5.
What chance then has the honest card player? There are black sheep in all flocks, and it may be well to give a few hints to those who are in the habit of playing in mixed companies. Never play with a man who looks attentively at the faces of the cards as he gathers them for his deal; or who stands the pack on edge, with the faces of the cards towards him, and evens up the bunch by picking out certain cards, apparently because they are sticking up. Any pack can be straightened by pushing the cards down with the hand. The man who lifts them up is more than probably a cheat. Never play with a man who looks intently at the pack and shuffles the cards slowly. If he is not locating the cards for the ensuing deal he is wasting time, and should be hurried a little. Never play with a person who leaves the cut portion of the pack on the table, and deals off the other part. In small parties this is a very common way of working what is known as _=the top stock=_. If such a dealer is carefully watched it will usually be found that he seizes the first opportunity to place the part cut off on the top of the part dealt from. The top stock is then ready for the draw, and the judicious player should at once cash his chips and retire from the game.
Any player having exactly 16 takes the farm and all its contents. If there is more than one 16, that which is made with the assistance of the ♡6 wins, otherwise the one which is made with the fewest cards. If this is a tie the eldest hand wins. If no one has exactly 16, the farm stays with its original owner deal after deal, until exactly 16 is held by some player. Whether any one wins the farm or not, when the hands are exposed all those who have overdrawn must pay to the one who owned the farm at the beginning of that deal, as many counters as they have points more than 16. These payments do not go into the farm, but are clear profits. Those who have less than 16 pay nothing to the farmer; but the one who is nearest 16 receives a counter from each of the others. Ties are decided by the possession of the ♡ 6, or the fewest cards, or the eldest hand, as already described. If the farm remains in the same hands, the farmer deals again, and collects his profits until he loses his farm. When the farm is won, it is emptied, and resold as in the beginning.
Chess is also the most fascinating of the table games, its charm being probably due to the fact that, like whist, it is a game that no man ever mastered. Whether or not this is in its favour is an open question. The amount of study and practice required to make a person proficient in chess brings a serious drain upon the time, and the fascinations of the game are such that once a person has become thoroughly interested in it, everything else is laid aside, and it is notorious that no man distinguished as a chess-player has ever been good for anything else. Mr. Blackburne, the English chess champion, regards the game as a dangerous intellectual vice which is spreading to rather an alarming extent. Discussing the matter, after his game with Mr. Bardeleben, he said: “I know a lot of people who hold the view that chess is an excellent means of training the mind in logic and shrewd calculation, provision and caution. But I don’t find these qualities reflected in the lives of chess-players. They are just as fallible and foolish as other folks who don’t know a rook from a pawn. But even if it were a form of mental discipline, which I doubt, I should still object to it on the ground of its fatal fascination.
The players are divided into two equal parties, each of which tries to secure and keep the ball in their possession. The prize is a ball made of cork, covered with silver.--Courtney s _West Cornwall Glossary_. In Taylor s _Antiquitates Curiosæ_, p. 144, it is stated:-- The game of hurling consisted in throwing or hurling a ball of wood about three inches in diameter, and covered with plated silver, sometimes gilt. On the ball was frequently a Cornish motto allusive to the game, and signifying that fair play was best. Success depended on catching the ball dexterously when dealt, and conveying it away through all the opposition of the adverse party, or, if that was impossible, to throw it into the hands of a partner, who, in his turn, was to exert his utmost efforts to convey it to his own goal, which was often three or four miles distant from that of his adversaries. T. Durfey s _Collin s Walk through London_, 1690, p. 192, says: Hurling is an ancient sport us d to this day in the countys of Cornwall and Devon, when once a year the hardy young fellows of each county meet; and a cork ball thinly plated with silver being thrown up between em, they run, bustle, and fight for it, to the witty dislocating of many a shrew d neck, or for the sport of telling how bravely their arms or legs came to be broke, when they got home.
There was no string attached to the ball, but it was necessary that it should hit the child it was thrown to. When Fire was called, Salamander and Ph[oe]nix were allowed to be said. The third time Fire was called, silence was observed, and every player bowed the head. We called it Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. A forfeit had to be paid for every mistake.--London (A. B. Gomme). It seems probable that a survival of fire-worship is shown by this game. Fivestones This game was played by a newspaper boy at Richmond Station for me as follows:--He had five square pieces of tile or stone about the size of dice.
_=Scoring.=_ When one player reaches six white counters and changes them for a red, his adversary must take down any white counters he may have scored. For instance: The pone has 2 reds and 4 whites up; the dealer has 1 red and 5 whites. The pone scores two whites, reaching six, and advancing his score to 3 reds, which are sometimes called impérials. The dealer must take down his white counters, losing that count altogether, and leaving himself 1 red. The only exception to this is that at the beginning of the hand if both have impérials combinations in hand, neither side takes down its white counters. In _=Counting out=_ the following order of precedence must be observed: The turn-up trump, (if it is an honour). The Point. Impérial in hand, sequences first. Impérial de retourne.
A similar game to this is played at Sporle, Norfolk (Miss Matthews). It is there called Long Tag. The players stand in line behind one another, and an odd one takes her place somewhere near the front; at a given signal, such as clapping of hands, the two at the back separate and try to meet again in front before the one on the watch can catch them; they may run where they please, and when one is caught that one becomes the one out. See French Jackie. Loup the Bullocks Young men go out to a green meadow, and there on all-fours plant themselves in a row about two yards distant from each other. Then he who is stationed farthest back in the bullock rank starts up and leaps over the other bullocks before him, by laying his hands on each of their backs; and when he gets over the last one leans down himself as before, whilst all the others, in rotation, follow his example; then he starts and leaps again. I have sometimes thought that we (the Scotch) have borrowed this recreation from our neighbours of the Green Isle, as at their wakes they have a play much of the same kind, which they call Riding Father Doud. One of the wakers takes a stool in his hand, another mounts that one s back, then Father Doud begins rearing and plunging, and if he unhorses his rider with a dash he does well. There is another play (at these wakes) called Kicking the Brogue, which is even ruder than Riding Father Doud, and a third one called Scuddieloof. --Mactaggart s _Gallovidian Encyclopædia_.
2, under the name of _level-sice_:-- By tragick death s device Ambitious hearts do play at _level-sice_. In the margin we have this explanation: A kinde of Christmas play, wherein each hunteth the other from his seat. The name seems derived from the French _levez sus_, in English, arise up. Halliwell s _Dictionary_ says that Skelton, ii. 31, spells it _levell suse_. Libbety, Libbety, Libbety-lat A child stands before a hassock, and as if he were going up stairs, he puts on it first his right and then his left foot, gradually quickening his steps, keeping time to the words-- Libbety, libbety, libbety-lat, Who can do this? and who can do that? And who can do anything better than that? --Cornwall (_Folk-lore Journal_, v. 59). Limpy Coley A boy s game undescribed.--Patterson s _Antrim and Down Glossary_. Little Dog I call you A number of girls stand in a line with their backs to a wall.