At 'beshrew him that's last at any style';
At leaping over a Christmas bonfire,
Or at 'drawing the dame out of the mire';
At shoot-cock, Gregory, stool-ball, and what-not;
Pick-point, top and scourge, to make him hot."
Many of these games have long since become obsolete. Tick-tacke resembled backgammon, but was rather more complicated; seize-noddy, maw, and ruff were games of cards, the first being somewhat similar to cribbage, while the two latter have no modern representatives, although the expression to ruff is frequently used at the whist-table; 'cross and pile' is merely an earlier name of 'pitch and toss'; and shoot-cock has been modernised into shuttlecock.
During the seventeenth century occasional village fairs were held in the Fylde, at which such uncouth games as "grinning through a horse-collar," as well as trials in whistling, etc., were common amusements, while pedlars' stalls, puppet shows, raffling tables, and drinking booths were well attended by the holiday-*makers. At that period any damsel, wishing to learn something, be it ever so little, of her future mate, was directed to run until out of breath on hearing the first notes of the cuckoo, and on removing her shoe she would find a hair of the same colour as that of the husband whom fate had selected for her. On May-day a snail placed upon the ashes of the hearth would trace the initial letter, or letters, of the lover's name; or the rind, peeled from an apple and thrown backwards over the head, would by its arrangement on falling to the ground effect a similar purpose:—
"Last May-day fair I search'd to find a snail
That might my secret lover's name reveal:
Upon a gooseberry bush a snail I found,
For always snails near sweetest fruit abound.
I seiz'd the vermin; home I quickly sped,
And on the hearth the milk white embers spread,
Slow crawled the snail, and if I right can spell
In the soft ashes marked a curious L."[1]
This couplet was recited by young maidens after capturing an insect called a Lady-bird, and on releasing it:—
"Fly, Lady-bird, fly south, east, or west;
Fly where the man is that I love best."
The following extracts from an "inventarye of all the goods and
- ↑ Gay.
