My father was a Frenchman,
He bought for me a fiddle;
He cut me here, he cut me here,
He cut me right in the middle.
Feed the Dove
An undescribed game mentioned in an old poem called Christmas (i. 285), quoted in Ellis’s Brand, i. 517: “Young men and maidens now at ‘Feed the Dove’ (with laurel leaf in mouth) play.”
Find the Ring
O the grand old Duke of York
He had ten thousand men,
He marched them up the hill ago
And he marched them down again.
And when they were up they were up,
And when they were down they were down,
And when they were half-way up the hill
They were neither up nor down.
—Sheffield (S. O. Addy).
A ring of chairs is formed, and the players sit on them. A piece of string long enough to go round the inner circumference of the chairs is procured. A small ring is put upon the string, the ends of which are then tied. Then one of the players gets up from his chair and stands in the centre. The players sitting on the chairs take the string into their hands and pass the ring round from one to another, singing the lines. If the person standing in the centre can find out in whose hand the ring is, he sits down, and his place is taken by the one who had the ring. The game is sometimes played round a haycock in the hayfield.
Miss Dendy sends a similar rhyme from Monton, Lancashire, where it is known simply as a marching game. For similar rhymes, see Halliwell’s Nursery Rhymes, p. 3.
See “[Paddy from Home],” “[Tip it].”