Part 23 (2/2)
4. ”Plant Lore Legends and Lyrics,” p. 504.
5. ”Popular Names of British Plants,” 1879, p. 204.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHILDREN'S RHYMES AND GAMES.
Children are more or less observers of nature, and frequently far more so than their elders. This, perhaps, is in a great measure to be accounted for from the fact that childhood is naturally inquisitive, and fond of having explained whatever seems in any way mysterious. Such especially is the case in the works of nature, and in a country ramble with children their little voices are generally busy inquiring why this bird does this, or that plant grows in such a way--a variety of questions, indeed, which unmistakably prove that the young mind instinctively seeks after knowledge. Hence, we find that the works of nature enter largely into children's pastimes; a few specimens of their rhymes and games a.s.sociated with plants we quote below.
In Lincolns.h.i.+re, the b.u.t.ter-bur (_Petasites vulgaris_) is nicknamed bog-horns, because the children use the hollow stalks as horns or trumpets, and the young leaves and shoots of the common hawthorn (_Cratoegus oxyacantha_), from being commonly eaten by children in spring, are known as ”bread and cheese;” while the ladies-smock (_Cardamine pratensis_) is termed ”bread and milk,” from the custom, it has been suggested, of country people having bread and milk for breakfast about the season when the flower first comes in. In the North of England this plant is known as cuckoo-spit, because almost every flower stem has deposited upon it a frothy patch not unlike human saliva, in which is enveloped a pale green insect. Few north-country children will gather these flowers, believing that it is unlucky to do so, adding that the cuckoo has spit upon it when flying over. [1]
The fruits of the mallow are popularly termed by children cheeses, in allusion to which Clare writes:--
”The sitting down when school was o'er, Upon the threshold of the door, Picking from mallows, sport to please, The crumpled seed we call a cheese.”
A Buckinghams.h.i.+re name with children for the deadly nightshade (_Atropa belladonna_) is the naughty-man's cherry, an ill.u.s.tration of which we may quote from Curtis's ”Flora Londinensis”:--”On Keep Hill, near High Wycombe, where we observed it, there chanced to be a little boy. I asked him if he knew the plant. He answered 'Yes; it was naughty-man's cherries.'” In the North of England the broad-dock (_Rumex obtusifolius_), when in seed, is known by children as curly-cows, who milk it by drawing the stalks through their fingers. Again, in the same locality, children speaking of the dead-man's thumb, one of the popular names of the _Orchis mascula_, tell one another with mysterious awe that the root was once the thumb of some unburied murderer. In one of the ”Roxburghe Ballads” the phrase is referred to:--
”Then round the meadows did she walke, Catching each flower by the stalke, Suche as within the meadows grew, As dead-man's thumbs and harebell blue.”
It is to this plant that Shakespeare doubtless alludes in ”Hamlet” (Act iv. sc. 7), where:--
”Long purples That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead-men's fingers call them.”
In the south of Scotland, the name ”doudle,” says Jamieson, is applied to the root of the common reed-gra.s.s (_Phragmites communis_), which is found, partially decayed, in mora.s.ses, and of ”which the children in the south of Scotland make a sort of musical instrument, similar to the oaten pipes of the ancients.” In Yorks.h.i.+re, the water-scrophularia (_Scrophularia aquatica_), is in children's language known as ”fiddle-wood,” so called because the stems are by children stripped of their leaves, and sc.r.a.ped across each other fiddler-fas.h.i.+on, when they produce a squeaking sound. This juvenile music is the source of infinite amus.e.m.e.nt among children, and is carried on by them with much enthusiasm in their games. Likewise, the spear-thistle (_Carduus lanceolatus_) is designated Marian in Scotland, while children blow the pappus from the receptacle, saying:--
”Marian, Marian, what's the time of day, One o'clock, two o'clock--it's time we were away.”
In Ches.h.i.+re, when children first see the heads of the ribwort plantain (_Plantago lanceolata_) in spring, they repeat the following rhyme:--
”Chimney sweeper all in black, Go to the brook and wash your back, Wash it clean, or wash it none; Chimney sweeper, have you done?”:--
Being in all probability a mode of divination for insuring good luck.
Another name for the same plant is ”c.o.c.ks,” from children fighting the flower-stems one against another.
The common hazel-nut (_Corylus avellana_) is frequently nicknamed the ”cob-nut,” and was so called from being used in an old game played by children. An old name for the devil's-bit (_Scabiosa succisa_), in the northern counties, and in Scotland, is ”curl-doddy,” from the resemblance of the head of flowers to the curly pate of a boy, this nickname being often used by children who thus address the plant:--
”Curly-doddy, do my biddin', Soop my house, and shoal my widden'.”
In Ireland, children twist the stalk, and as it slowly untwists in the hand, thus address it:--
”Curl-doddy on the midden, Turn round an' take my biddin'.”
In c.u.mberland, the _Primula farinosa_, commonly known as bird's-eye, is called by children ”bird-een.”
”The lockety-gowan and bonny bird-een Are the fairest flowers that ever were seen.”
And in many places the _Leontodon taraxac.u.m_ is designated ”blow-ball,”
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