He says, “I once heard this sung three times, followed by ‘Ha! ha! he!’ to the tune of the last bar.” Mr. W. R. Emslie says the game is known at Beddgelert as “Horses, Wild Horses,” he believes, but is not quite certain.
Northall (Rhymes, p. 401) describes a game very similar to this under “Buck,” in which the rhyme and method of play is the same as in that game. He continues, “This is closely allied to a game called in Warwickshire ‘[Jack upon the Mopstick].’ But in this there is no guessing. The leaping party must maintain their position whilst their leader says—
Jack upon the mopstick,
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
Count ’em off again.”
Bunting
Name for “[Tip-cat].”—Cole’s S. W. Lincolnshire Glossary.
Burly Whush
A game played at with a ball. The ball is thrown up by one of the players on a house or wall, who cries on the instant it is thrown to another to catch or kep it before it falls to the ground. They all run off but this one to a little distance, and if he fails in kepping it he bawls out “Burly Whush;” then the party are arrested in their flight, and must run away no farther. He singles out one of them then, and throws the ball at him, which often is directed so fair as to strike; then this one at which the ball has been thrown is he who gives “Burly Whush” with the ball to any he chooses. If the corner of a house be at hand, as is mostly the case, and any of the players escape behind it, they must still show one of their hands past its edge to the Burly Whush man, who sometimes hits it such a whack with the ball as leaves it dirling for an hour afterwards.—Mactaggart’s Gallovidian Encyclopædia.
See “[Ball],” “[Keppy Ball],” “[Monday].”
Buttons
Two or more boys take two buttons in their right hands, and try to throw them both into a small hole in the ground about two yards off. The boy who succeeds in getting both buttons in begins first next game, and takes a button as prize. [This seems merely a mild form of marbles.]—Lincolnshire (Rev. —— Roberts).