Category: Children & Young Adult Reading
The existence of any children's tradition in America, maintained independently of print, has hitherto been scarcely noticed. Yet it appears that, in this minor but curious branch of folk-lore, the vein in the United States is both richer and purer than that so far worked in Gr...
The players are divided into equal parties, who take position on different sides of a building, out of sight of each other. A lad then throws the ball over the roof of the house...
11. Part 11A more characteristic version (in Nantucket, Mass.) had it: "The royal Russian princess, Husty Fusty, is defunct." To which it was necessary to answer soberly--"I'm very sorry t...
12. Part 12Among games of search may be mentioned the present, in which, the greater part of the company being sent out of the room, a thimble must be placed so as to escape notice, and ye...
7. Part 7A French round begins similarly: "Ah, the bringer of letters! What news is this? Ah, it is news that you must change your love.[58] Must I change my love, I prefer to die; he is...
16. Part 16Connected with this game in Massachusetts is a curious piece of local lore. A lady[128] recollects that, in the first years of the century, a pedler came to her father's house i...
9. Part 9[81] The Canadian words are, "J'entends le moulin, tique, tique, tique." Probably the old English dance ended, "How merrily the mill goes, clack, clack, clack!" after which, as...
3. Part 3The May-pole, as we have described it, belonged to the village; but a like usage was kept up by individuals. It was the duty of every lover to go into the woods on the eve or ea...
5. Part 5This ancient and interesting, now nearly forgotten, game was in the last generation a universal favorite in the United States, imported, no doubt, by the early settlers of the c...
6. Part 6This pretty song has been recited to us by informants of the most cultivated class, and, on the other hand, we have seen it played as a round by the very "Arabs of the street,"...
10. Part 10"In some great boarding-schools for the fair sex it is customary, upon the introduction of a novice, for the scholars to receive her with much pretended solemnity, and decorate...
8. Part 8Reap we the oat harvest, Who will come and bind it? Ah, perhaps his darling, Treasure of his bosom. Where have I last seen her? Yesterday at evening, Yesterday at morning! When...
13. Part 13"Where shall your father sleep?" "Sleep in the servant's bed." "Where shall the servant sleep?" "Sleep in the stable." "Where shall the pigs sleep?" "In the wash-tub." "Where sh...
2. Part 2A different explanation has been given to this coincidence. When only the agreement, in a few cases, of English and German rhymes was noticed, it was assumed that the correspond...
4. Part 4In the same town was a community of "Friends," or "Quakers." It was the custom for children of these to play at meeting. Sitting about the room on a "First-day" gathering, one o...
17. Part 17This game without doubt is the most curious of our collection, both on account of its own quaintness, and because of the extraordinary relation in which it stands to the child's...
15. Part 15[112] The like method in Austria, where the general idea of the game, and many particulars, are the same. There are, however, only two bases. The same way, even to the ability t...
18. Part 18The coincidence which this comparison shows to exist between English and German games is very close. Taking three German collections--belonging respectively to Switzerland (Roch...
1. Part 1The existence of any children's tradition in America, maintained independently of print, has hitherto been scarcely noticed. Yet it appears that, in this minor but curious branc...
19. Part 19141. _German_, names of "marbles." "Schnell-Kügelchen" (15th century), "Schusser," "Löper," also "Marmeln," the latter when made of marble. A MS. of the 15th century mentions "t...