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FOX—FOX AND GOOSE |
T39 |
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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. But whatever he says is as absolutely depended on as an oracle; and if he happen to couple two people who have an aversion to each other, tears and vexation succeed the mirth. This they call cutting off the fiddler's head; for after this he is dead for the whole year." Redeeming the forfeits is called "Crying the Weds," in Burne's Shropshire Folk-lore, p. 526. See "Wadds."
Fox
Fox, a fox, a brummalary
How many miles to Lummaflary ? Lummabary ?
Eight and eight and a hundred and eight.
How shall I get home to-night ?
Spin your legs and run fast. Halliwell gives this rhyme as No. ccclvii. of his Nursery RJiymes, but without any description of the game beyond the words, "A game of the fox." It is probably the same game as " Fox and Goose."
Fox and Goose (1)
In Dorsetshire one of the party, called the Fox, takes one end of the room or corner of a field (for the game was equally played indoors or out); all the rest of the children arrange |
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