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ORANGES AND LEMONS |
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In the Middlesex version (Miss Winfield) the children form a ring and go round singing the verses, and apparently there is neither catching the "last man" nor the "tug." Mr. Emslie says he has seen and played the game in Middlesex, and it always terminated with the cutting off the last man's head. In the Symondsbury version the players drop their hands when they say " Sunday." No tug is mentioned in the first Earls Heaton version of the game (Mr. Hardy). In the second version he says bells are represented by children. They should have in their hands, bells, or some article to represent them. All stand in a row. First, second, and third bells stand out in turn to sing. All rush for bells to sing chorus. Miss Barclay writes: The children of the Fernham and Long-cot choir, playing on Christmas Eve, 1891, pulled across a handkerchief. In Monton, Lancashire, Miss Dendy says the game is played as elsewhere, but without words. In a SwarTham version (Miss Matthews), the girls sometimes call themselves " Plum pudding and roast beef," or whatever fancy may suggest, instead of oranges and lemons. They join hands high enough for the others to pass under, which they do to a call of " Ducky, Ducky," presently the hands come down and catch one, who is asked in confidence which she likes best. The game then proceeds in the usual way, one side trying to pull the other over a marked line. Oranges and lemons at Bocking, Essex, is an abbreviated variant of the rhyme printed by Halliwell (Folk-lore Record, iii., part II., 171). In Nottinghamshire, Miss Peacock says it is sometimes called " Tarts and Cheesecakes." Moor (Suffolk Words) mentions "Oranges and Lemons" as played by both girls and boys, and adds, " I believe it is nearly the same as ' Plum Pudding and Roast Beef.'" In the Suffolk version sent by Mrs. Haddon a new word is introduced, " carwoo." This is the signal for one of the line to be caught. Miss Eddleston, Gainford, Durham, says this game is called—
Through and through the shally go, The last shall be taken.
Mr. Halliwell (Nursery Rhymes, No. cclxxxi.) adopts the verses entitled, "The Merry Bells of London," from Gammer
vol. ir. c |
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