Eight tricks solo in any suit. _=Grand independence=_. Grand misère. _=Grand misère=_, or _=misère sans ecart=_. Misère with four aces. _=Misère des quatre as=_. Nine tricks in any suit. _=Neuf=_. Nine tricks in petite. _=Neuf en petite=_.
Three other versions introduce the incident of watching by a man, and failing him, a dog or cock; while five versions introduce a prisoner. This incident occurs the greatest number of times. It is not surprising that the London version seems to be the most akin to modern facts, being told so near the spot indicated by the verses, and on this account it cannot be considered as the oldest of the variants. There remain the other two groups. Both are distinguished by the introduction of a human element, one as watchman, the other as prisoner. The watchman incident approaches nearer to modern facts; the prisoner incident remains unexplained by any appeal to modern life, and it occurs more frequently than the others. In only one case, the Shropshire, is the prisoner ransomed; in the others he is sent to prison. Besides this main line of criticism brought out by the analysis there is little to note. The Hurstmonceux version begins with taking lambs over London Bridge, and the Shropshire version with the players themselves going over; but these are doubtless foreign adjuncts, because they do not properly prefix the main incident of the bridge being broken. The Belfast version has a curious line, Grant said the little bee or dee, which the Cork version renders, Gran says the little D.
If there are no points claimed, he must wait until the cards are turned face down, thus acknowledging that there is apparently nothing to score. A player is not allowed to tell his adversary whether or not he has counted his hand or crib correctly, until it is pegged. _=Nineteen.=_ As it is impossible to hold 19 in hand or crib, it is a common practice for a player, when he has nothing at all to score, to announce, “Nineteen.” The numbers twenty-seven, twenty-six and twenty-five are also impossible. _=Pegging.=_ Neither player is allowed to touch the other’s pegs. If the score is erroneous, the player in fault must be called upon to remedy it himself. A player whose pegs are touched by his adversary can score two holes for penalty. If a player removes his adversary’s front peg, the latter may immediately claim the game.
Here is the premeditation, the thrill, the strain of accumulating victory or disaster--and no smashed nor sanguinary bodies, no shattered fine buildings nor devastated country sides, no petty cruelties, none of that awful universal boredom and embitterment, that tiresome delay or stoppage or embarrassment of every gracious, bold, sweet, and charming thing, that we who are old enough to remember a real modern war know to be the reality of belligerence. This world is for ample living; we want security and freedom; all of us in every country, except a few dull-witted, energetic bores, want to see the manhood of the world at something better than apeing the little lead toys our children buy in boxes. We want fine things made for mankind--splendid cities, open ways, more knowledge and power, and more and more and more--and so I offer my game, for a particular as well as a general end; and let us put this prancing monarch and that silly scare-monger, and these excitable patriots, and those adventurers, and all the practitioners of Welt Politik, into one vast Temple of War, with cork carpets everywhere, and plenty of little trees and little houses to knock down, and cities and fortresses, and unlimited soldiers--tons, cellars-full--and let them lead their own lives there away from us. My game is just as good as their game, and saner by reason of its size. Here is War, done down to rational proportions, and yet out of the way of mankind, even as our fathers turned human sacrifices into the eating of little images and symbolic mouthfuls. For my own part, I am _prepared_. I have nearly five hundred men, more than a score of guns, and I twirl my moustache and hurl defiance eastward from my home in Essex across the narrow seas. Not only eastward. I would conclude this little discourse with one other disconcerting and exasperating sentence for the admirers and practitioners of Big War. I have never yet met in little battle any military gentleman, any captain, major, colonel, general, or eminent commander, who did not presently get into difficulties and confusions among even the elementary rules of the Battle.
Kenrick in his Review of Dr. Johnson s Shakespeare, 1765, on rules for seemly behaviour, in which the forfeits imposed by barbers as penalties for handling razors, &c, are set forth. Although barbers forfeits are not of the same nature as the nursery forfeits, it is possible that this general custom among so important a class of the community in early times as barbers may have suggested the game. Both Forby in his _Vocabulary of East Anglia_ and Moor in his _Suffolk Words_ bear testimony to the general prevalence of barbers forfeits, and it must be borne in mind that barbers were also surgeons in early days. A curious custom is also recorded in another East Anglian word-list, which may throw light upon the origin of the game from popular custom. A forfeit is incurred by using the word water in a brew-house, where you must say liquor; or by using the word grease in a chandlery, where it is stuff or metal. The forfeit is to propitiate the offended _genius loci_ (Spurden s _East Anglian Vocabulary_). The element of divination in the custom is perhaps indicated by a curious note from Waldron, in his _Description of the Isle of Man_ (_Works_, p. 55), There is not a barn unoccupied the whole twelve days, every parish hiring fiddlers at the public charge. On Twelfth Day the fiddler lays his head on some of the wenches laps, and a third person asks who such a maid or such a maid shall marry, naming the girls then present one after another; to which he answers according to his own whim, or agreeable to the intimacies he has taken notice of during this time of merriment.
There is one day in the year, Shrove Tuesday, when the play is customarily practised, though not quite exclusively.--Atkinson s _Cleveland Glossary_. Easther (_Almondbury Glossary_) describes it as played with a wooden ball, a spel, and a pommel. Two may play, or two sides. When a player goes in he drives the knor for, say, 100 yards, _i.e._, five score, and he reckons five. Each person has the same number of strokes previously agreed upon, but generally only one innings. The spell is a kind of stage with three or four feet, to drive it into the ground. On the top of this stage is a spring made of steel, containing a cup to receive the knor, which is about one or two inches in diameter, and is made of holly or box.
If the side that named the trump fails to make as many points as it bid, it scores nothing, and the number of points bid are scored by the adversaries, in addition to any points that the adversaries may have made in play. For instance: A-B are partners against Y-Z. B has bid to make 8, and named hearts for trumps. A-B make 10, which is 2 more than they bid, Y-Z getting the other 4; which leaves A-B 6. These are scored by placing one red and one white counter in the pool. But suppose A-B got only 5 points, Y-Z getting 9. A-B would score nothing, as they did not make good their bid; while Y-Z would score the 9 points actually won, and the 8 points bid in addition, or 17 altogether. The old way of scoring was to _=set back=_ the side that failed to make the number bid; but that system of counting entirely destroyed the interest in the game when one side got much behind; because it could not recover in time to prevent the other side from _=sweating out=_, as it is called. Suppose A-B have been set back 18 points on two failures, Y-Z having made 16 points on those two deals, and 23 on their own bids. The score will stand: A-B 64 to go; Y-Z, 12 to go.
This game is called the Gala Ship, and the girls, forming a ring, march round singing-- Three times round goes the gala, gala ship, And three times round goes she; Three times round goes the gala, gala ship, And sinks to the bottom of the sea. They repeat this thrice, courtesying low. The first to courtesy is placed in the centre of the circle, when the others sing:-- Choose your maidens one by one, One by one, one by one; Choose your maidens one by one-- And down goes (all courtesy) Merrima Tansa! She chooses her maidens. They take her to a distance, when she is secretly told the name of her lover. The remainder of the girls imitate sweeping, and sing several stanzas to the effect that they will sweep the house till the bride comes home, when the bride is now placed within the circle, and from a score to a hundred stanzas, with marching and various imitations of what the lucky bride accomplishes or undergoes, are sung. Each one closes with Down goes Merrima Tansa and the head-ducking; and this wonderful music-drama of childhood is not concluded until the christening of the bride s first-born, with-- Next Sunday morn to church she must gae, A babe on her knee, the best of a-- And down goes Merrima Tansa! Jamieson gives the game as a ring within which one goes round with a handkerchief, with which a stroke is given in succession to every one in the ring; the person who strikes, or the taker, still repeating this rhyme:-- Here I gae round the jingie ring, The jingie ring, the jingie ring, Here I gae round the jingie ring, And through my merry-ma-tanzie. Then the handkerchief is thrown at one in the ring, who is obliged to take it up and go through the same process. He also mentions another account of the game which had been sent him, which describes the game as played in a similar manner to the versions given by Chambers. Stewart, in his _Ben Nevis and Glencoe_, p. 361, records the following rhyme:-- Here we go with merry shout, Up and down and round about, And dance a merry-ma-tandy, but he does not describe the game in detail.
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When the ball is lodged in the hole it is said to be Kirkit. --Jamieson. Kiss in the Ring [Music] --Nottingham (Miss Youngman). [Music] --Lancashire (Mrs. Harley). [Music] --Earls Heaton, Yorks. (H. Hardy). I. I sent a letter to my love, And on the way I dropped it; And one of you have picked it up And put it in your pocket.
On page 15, line 12, _for_ Eggatt _read_ Hats in Holes. On pp. 24, 49, 64, 112, _for_ _Folk-lore Journal_, vol. vi. _read_ vol. vii. On page 62, last line, _insert_ vol. xix. _after_ _Journ. Anthrop.
=_ There are seven distinct objects in the Solo Whist, and before play begins each player has an opportunity of declaring to which of these objects he proposes to attain. They are:-- 1st. To win 8 of the 13 tricks, with the assistance of a partner. This is called a _=Proposal=_; the partner’s share is an _=Acceptance=_. 2nd. To win 5 of the 13 tricks, against the three other players combined. This is called a _=Solo=_. 3rd. To take no tricks, there being no trump suit, and the three other players being opposed. This is called _=Misère=_, or Nullo.
Proposal and Acceptance wins or loses 1 red counter. 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.
When the player of the two hands (hereinafter termed “the declarer”) wins at least as many tricks as he declared, he scores the full value of the tricks won (see Law 3).[10] 47_a_. When the declarer fails to win as many tricks as he declares, neither he nor his adversaries score anything toward the game, but his adversaries score in their honour column 50 points for each under-trick (_i.e._, each trick short of the number declared). If the declaration be doubled, the adversaries score 100 points; if redoubled, 200 points for each under-trick. 48. The loss on the dealer’s original declaration of “one spade” is limited to 100 points, whether doubled or not, unless redoubled. Honours are scored as held. 49.