| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
WADDS AND THE WEARS 327
assigned as a means of redeeming one's wadds. Often for this purpose a lad has to kiss the very lips he formerly rejected ; or, it may be, he has to kneel to the prettiest, bow to the wittiest, and kiss the one he loves best before the forfeit is redeemed.—The substance of the above is from a note in Cromek's Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, p. 114, who says—In this game formerly young men and women arranged themselves on each side of the fire, and alternately bestowed husbands and wives on each other. Carleton's Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, p. 106, also describes the game without any material difference.
Another form of this game, practised in Dumfriesshire in the last century, and perhaps still, was more common. The party are first fitted each with some ridiculous name, not very easy to be remembered, such as Swatter-in-the-Sweet-Milk, Butter-Milk-and-Brose, the Gray Gled o) Glenwhargan Craig, &c. Then all being seated, one comes up, repeating the following rhymes—
I never stealt Rob's dog, nor never intend to do,
But weel I ken wha stealt him, and dern'd him in a cleugh,
And pykit his banes bare, bare, bare eneugh !
Wha but-------wha but-------
The object is to burst out suddenly with one of the fictitious names, and thus take the party bearing it by surprise. If the individual mentioned, not immediately recollecting the name he bore, failed, on the instant, to say " No me," by way of denying the accusation respecting the dog, he was subjected to a forfeit; and this equally happened if he cried " No me." when it was the name of another person which was mentioned. The forfeits were disposed of as in the former case.—Popular Rhymes, pp. 125-126.
It will be seen that the first version of Chambers more nearly resembles " Hey Wullie Wine " (vol. i. p. 207), and that the latter part of the version given by Mactaggart is similar to "Three Flow7ers" (ante, p. 255, and the first part to "Trades," p. 305). Mr. W. Ballantyne sent me a version from Biggar as played when he was a boy. It is similar to Mactaggart's. This game may indicate an earlier form of playing at forfeits |
||