Volume Ii Part 100 (2/2)

Here's a poor widow from Babylon, All her sons and daughters are gone.

Come choose to the east, come choose to the west, Come choose you the very one that you like best.

Now they are married I wish them joy, Every year a girl and boy.

Loving each other like sister and brother, A happy new couple may kiss together.

-Laurieston School, Kircudbrights.h.i.+re (J. Lawson).

A circle is formed, two children in the centre, one of whom kneels, the other walks round singing-

I am a poor widow go walking around, Go walking around, go walking around, my own.

And all of my children are married but one, Are married but one, are married but one, my own.

I put on a nightcap to keep her head warm, To keep her head warm, to keep her head warm, my own.

Then rise up my daughter and choose whom you please, And choose whom you please, and choose whom you please, my own.

The mother then joins the circle, and the daughter becomes poor widow.

On the mention of the nightcap a white handkerchief is spread over the head, the circle walking around slowly, and chanting the words slowly and dismally.

-Penzance (Miss Courtney).

See ”Widow,” _ante_, p. 381.

Rashes.

A game played by children with rushes in Derbys.h.i.+re, which is a relic of the old custom of rush-bearing. In the warm days of May and June the village children proceed in parties to the sedges and banks of d.y.k.e and brook, there to gather the finest and best rushes. These are brought with childish ceremony to some favourite spot, and then woven into various articles, such as baskets, parasols, and umbrellas. Small arbours are made of green bushes and strewn with rushes, inside which the children sit and sing and play at ”keeping house” with much lordly ceremony. At these times they play at a game which consists in joining hands in a circle, and going round a heap of rushes singing or saying-

Mary Green and Bessy Bell, They were two bonny la.s.ses; They built a house in yonder hill, And covered it with rashes.

Rashes, rashes, rashes!

At each repet.i.tion of the word ”rashes” (rushes) they loosen hands, and each picking up a lot of rushes, throw them into the air, so that they may fall on every one in the descent. Many of the articles made with rushes are hung over the chimney-piece in houses, and in children's bedrooms, as ornaments or samples of skill, and there remain until the next season, or until the general cleaning at Christmas.-Thomas.

Radcliffe, in ”Long Ago,” vol. i. p. 49 (1873).

Queen Anne.

[Vol. ii. pp. 90-102.]

Lady Queen Anne, she sits in her pan, As fair as a lilly, as white as a lamb; Come t.i.ttle, come tattle, come tell me this tale, Which of these ladies doth carry the ball?

My father sent me three letters, please deliver the ball.

If a correct guess is made by the opposite side, the queen and the child who had the ball say-

The ball is mine, it is not yours, You may go to the garden and pick more flowers.

-Isle of Man (A. W. Moore).

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