In this game, said in Lancashire to be the “oldest play of all,” judging both by the words and method of playing, we have, I believe, a distinct survival or remembrance of the tribal marriage—marriage at a period when it was the custom for men of a clan to seek wives from the girls of another clan, both clans belonging to one tribe. The game is a purely marriage game, and marriage in a matter-of-fact way. Young men of a clan or village arrive at the abode of another clan for the purpose of seeking wives, probably at a feast or fair time. The maidens are apparently ready and expecting their arrival. They are as willing to become wives as the dukes are to become husbands. It is not marriage by force or capture, though the triumphant carrying off of a wife appears in some versions. It is exogamous marriage custom, after the tribe had settled down and arranged their system of marriage in lieu of a former more rude system of capture. The suggested depreciation of the girls, and their saucy rejoinders, may be looked upon as so much good-humoured chaff and banter exchanged between the two parties to enhance each other’s value, and to display their wit. While it does not follow that the respective parties were complete strangers to one another, these lines may indicate that each individual wished “to have as good a look round as possible” before accepting the offer made. It will be seen that there is no mention of “love” in the game, nor is there any individual courtship between boy and girl. The marriage formula does not appear, nor is there any sign that a “ceremony” or “sanction” to conclude the marriage was necessary, nor does kissing occur in the game.
There is evidence of the tribal marriage system in the survivals of exogamy and marriage by capture occasionally to be noted in traditional local custom. Thus the custom recorded by Chambers (Book of Days, i. 722) of the East Anglians (Suffolk), where whole parishes have intermarried to such an extent that almost everybody is related to or connected with everybody else, is distinctly a case in point, the intermarrying of “parishes” for a long series of years necessarily resulting in close inter-relationship. One curious effect of this is that no one is counted as a “relation” beyond first cousins; for if “relationship” went further than that it might “almost as well include the whole parish.” The old proverb (also from East Anglia):
“To change the name, and not the letter,
Is a change for the worse, and not for the better;”
that is, it is unlucky for a woman to marry a man whose surname begins with the same letter as her own, also indicates a survival of the necessity of marrying into another clan or tribal family.
Another interesting point in the game is the refrain, “With a rancy, tancy, tay,” which with variations accompanies all versions, and separates this game from some otherwise akin to it. There is little doubt that this refrain represents an old tribal war cry, from which “slogans” or family “cries” were derived. These cries were not only used in times of warfare, tribes were assembled by them, each leader of a clan or party having a distinguishing cry and blast of a horn peculiar to himself, and the sounding of this particular blast or cry would be recognised by men of the same party, who would go to each other’s assistance if need were. The refrain is sung by all the players in [Oxfordshire] and [Lancashire], and in some versions the players in this game put their hands to their mouths as if imitating a blast from a horn, and a Lancashire version (about 1820-1830), quoted by Miss Burne, has for the refrain, “With a rancy, tancy, terry boys horn, with a rancy, tancy, tee.” “The burden,” says Miss Burne, “evidently represented a flourish of trumpets.” The [Barnes version], “With a rancy, tancy, terrimus hey!” and many others confirm this.
An interesting article by Dr. Karl Blind (Antiquary, ix. 63-72), on the Hawick riding song, “Teribus ye Teri Odin,” points out that this slogan, which occurs in the “Hawick Common-Riding Song,” a song used at the annual Riding of the Marches of the Common, is an ancient Germanic war-cry. Dr. Blind, quoting from a pamphlet, Flodden Field and New Version of the Common Riding Song, says, “It is most likely that the inspiring strains of ‘Terribus’ would be the marching tune of our ancestors when on their way for Flodden Field and other border battles, feuds, and frays. The words of the common-riding song have been changed at various periods, according to the taste and capacity of poets and minstrels, but the refrain has remained little altered. . . . The origin of the ancient and, at one time, imperative ceremony of the common-riding is lost in antiquity, and this old, no longer understood, exclamation, ‘Teribus ye Teri Odin,’ has (says Dr. Blind) all through ages in the meanwhile clung to that ceremony.”
If we can fairly claim that the words of this game have preserved an old slogan or tribal cry, an additional piece of evidence is supplied to the suggestion that the game is a reflection of the tribal marriage—a reflection preserved by children of to-day by means of oral tradition from the children of a thousand years ago or more, who played at games in imitation of the serious and ordinary actions of their elders.[Addendum] [Addendum]
Three Flowers
My mistress sent me unto thine,
Wi’ three young flowers baith fair and fine—
The Pink, the Rose, and the Gilliflower:
And as they here do stand,
Whilk will ye sink, whilk will ye swim,
And whilk bring hame to land?
A group of lads and lasses being assembled round the fire, two leave the party and consult apart as to the names of three others, young men or girls, whom they designate Red Rose, the Pink, and the Gilliflower. If lads are first pitched upon, the two return to the fireside circle, and having selected a lass, they say the above verse to her. The maiden must choose one of the flowers named, on which she passes some approving epithet, adding, at the same time, a disapproving rejection of the other two; for instance, I will sink the Pink, swim the Rose, and bring home the Gilliflower to land. The two young men then disclose the names of the parties upon whom they had fixed those appellations respectively, when of course it may chance that she has slighted the person she is understood to be most attached to, or chosen him whom she is believed to regard with aversion; either of which events is sure to throw the company into a state of outrageous merriment.—Chambers’ Popular Rhymes, p. 127. Mr. W. Ballantyne has given me a description of this game as played at Biggar when he was a boy, which is practically the same as this.