Volume Ii Part 60 (2/2)

[Ill.u.s.tration]

I was taught by a maid servant to play this game on the ground. This girl drew the round and divisions and figures on the gravel path or mould in the garden, and sharpened a piece of stick at one end for the pointer. She did not know the game as one played on slates, but always played it on the ground in this way.

This game appears to indicate a lottery, and might originally have had something to do with allotting pieces of land or other property to prospective owners under the ancient common field system. The places when taken by one player not being available for another, and the fact of it being known as played on the ground, and not on slates, are both significant indications of the suggested origin. The method of allotting lands by lottery is described in Gomme's _Village Community_. Mr.

Newell, _Games_, p. 140, records a similar game called ”Wheel of Fortune.”

Tods and Lambs

A game played on a perforated board with wooden pins.-Jamieson. The Editor adds that the game is materially the same as the English ”Fox and Geese.”

See ”Fox and Geese” (2).

Tom Tiddler's Ground

[Music]

-Liverpool (Mrs. Harley).

A line is drawn on the ground, one player stands behind it. The piece so protected is ”Tom Tiddler's ground.” The other players stand in a row on the other side. The row breaks and the children run over, calling out, ”Here we are on Tom Tiddler's ground, picking up gold and silver.” Tom Tiddler catches them, and as they are caught they stand on one side. The last out becomes Tom Tiddler.-Monton, Lancas.h.i.+re (Miss Dendy).

Tom Tiddler's Ground is played at Chirbury under the name of ”Boney” = Bonaparte! one boy taking possession of a certain area, and the others trespa.s.sing on it, saying, ”I am on Boney's ground.” If they are caught there, they are put ”in prison” till released by a touch from a comrade.-Chirbury (_Shrops.h.i.+re Folk-lore_, p. 523-524).

I'm on Tom Tinker's ground, I'm on Tom Tinker's ground, I'm on Tom Tinker's ground, Picking up gold and silver.

-Derbys.h.i.+re (_Folk-lore Journal_, i. 386).

Northall (_Folk Rhymes_) gives the following lines, and describes it as played as above, except that Tom Tinder is provided with a knotted handkerchief, with which he buffets any one caught on his property:-

Here we are on Tom Tinder's ground, Picking up gold and silver; You pick weeds, and I'll pick seeds, And we'll all pick carraway comfits.

In the Liverpool district the game is called ”Old Daddy Bunchey” (Mrs.

Harley), and in Norfolk ”p.u.s.s.ey's Ground” (Miss Matthews).

It is also mentioned by Lowsley (_Berks.h.i.+re Glossary_).

Tops

The special games now played with tops are mentioned under their respective t.i.tles, but the general allusions to the ancient whipping-tops are important enough to note.

Strutt says the top was known with us as early at least as the fourteenth century, when its form was the same as now, and the manner of using it can admit of but little if any difference. Representations of boys whipping tops occur in the marginal paintings of the MSS. written at this period; and in a work of the thirteenth century, ”Le Miracle de Saint Loys,” the whipping top (Sabot) is mentioned. The top was probably in use as a toy long before. Strutt records the following anecdote of Prince Henry, son of James I., which he met with in a MS. at the Museum, the author of which speaks of it as perfectly genuine. His words are-”The first tyme that he, the prince, went to the towne of Sterling to meete the king, seeing a little without the gate of the towne a stack of corne in proportion not unlike to a topp wherewith he used to play; he said to some that were with him, 'Loe there is a goodly topp;'

whereupon one of them saying, 'Why doe you not play with it, then?' he answered, 'Set you it up for me, and I will play with it.'”-_Sports_, p.

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