Here the Duke steps forward and says or sings:
“I’ll walk the kitchen and the hall,
And take the fairest of them all;
The fairest one that I can see
Is Miss ———— (naming her)
So Miss ———— come to me.”
The one chosen then becomes a Duke, and the game is repeated, the chosen ones, each in turn, becoming Dukes, until there is only one of the party left, when they sing:
“Now we’ve got this pretty girl—
This pretty girl—this pretty girl—
Now we’ve got this pretty girl,
Of a cold and frosty morning,”
Whilst singing this last verse they come forward and claim the last girl, and embrace her as soon as they get her over to their side. (Symondsbury.)
(vii.)—The following variant of this last game, called “A Young Man that wants a Sweetheart,” was one of those that Mr. Barnes sent an account of to Mr. Otis, and appeared in the Yarmouth Register (Mass.) for February, 1874, before alluded to.
The players consisted of a dozen boys standing hand in hand on one side, and a dozen girls standing in a row facing them. The Boys commence by singing as they dance forward:
“There’s a young man that wants a sweetheart—
Wants a sweetheart—wants a sweetheart—
There’s a young man that wants a sweetheart,
To the ransom tansom tidi-de-o.
“Let him come out and choose his own—
Choose his own—choose his own—
Let him come out and choose his own—
To the ransom tansom tidi-de-o.”
The Girls reply:
“Will any of my fine daughters do—
Daughters do—daughters do?
Will any of my fine daughters do,
To the ranson tansom tidi-de-o?”
