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GREEN GRASS 163
behind their backs, up and down the road. Each child was crowned with rushes, and also had sashes or girdles of rushes. Mr. Ballantyne says in his boyhood it was played by a row of boys on one side and another of girls opposite. The boys selected a girl when singing the third verse.
In the Roxton version, one child at the end of the line of children acts as " mother." One child advances as u suitor," and says the three first verses. The " mother " replies with the next line. The " suitorn chooses a girl and says the next verse, and then all the children sing the last verse. This is the same action as in Halliwell's version.
(d) The analysis of the game-rhymes is on pp. 164-67. This analysis presents us with a very good example of the changes caused by the game-rhymes being handed down by tradition among people who have forgotten the original meaning of the game. The first line in the Scotch version contains the word " dis," which is not known to the ordinary vocabulary. Another word, of similar import, is "dik-ma-day" in the Lanarkshire version. Two other words occur, namely, " the-gan " in the Lanarkshire, and " maycanameecan n in the Sussex versions, which are also not to be found in ordinary vocabularies. The two last words appear only once, and cannot, therefore, be used for the purpose of tracing out an original form of the game-rhyme, because on the system of analysis adopted they may be arbitrary introductions and totally unconnected with the original rhymes. This, however, is not the case with the two first-mentioned words, and I am inclined to consider them as forming part of the earliest version. The word " dis" is carried through no less than ten out of the fourteen variants, the gradation in the forms being as follows :—
dis
dass
dish
diss[y]—duss
dossy
this—thus —dust —dust[y] |
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