The same ritual is gone through with respect to one of the other sex; in which case such rhymes as the following are used:—
I’ll put him on a riddle, and blaw him owre the sea,
Wha’ll buy [Johnie Paterson] for me?
I’ll put him on my big lum head,
And blaw him up wi’ pouther and lead.
Or, when the proposed party is agreeable—
I’ll set him on my table head,
And feed him up wi’ milk and bread.
A refusal must be atoned for by a wadd or forfeit. A piece of money, a knife, or any little thing which the owner prizes, will serve. When a sufficient number of persons have made forfeits, the business of redeeming them is commenced, and generally it is then that the amusement is greatest. The duty of kissing some person, or some part of the room, is usually assigned as a means of redeeming one’s wadds. Often for this purpose a lad has to kiss the very lips he formerly rejected; or, it may be, he has to kneel to the prettiest, bow to the wittiest, and kiss the one he loves best before the forfeit is redeemed.—The substance of the above is from a note in Cromek’s Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, p. 114, who says—In this game formerly young men and women arranged themselves on each side of the fire, and alternately bestowed husbands and wives on each other. Carleton’s Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, p. 106, also describes the game without any material difference.
Another form of this game, practised in Dumfriesshire in the last century, and perhaps still, was more common. The party are first fitted each with some ridiculous name, not very easy to be remembered, such as Swatter-in-the-Sweet-Milk, Butter-Milk-and-Brose, the Gray Gled o’ Glenwhargan Craig, &c. Then all being seated, one comes up, repeating the following rhymes—
I never stealt Rob’s dog, nor never intend to do,
But weel I ken wha stealt him, and dern’d him in a cleugh,
And pykit his banes bare, bare, bare eneugh!
Wha but —— wha but ——
The object is to burst out suddenly with one of the fictitious names, and thus take the party bearing it by surprise. If the individual mentioned, not immediately recollecting the name he bore, failed, on the instant, to say “No me,” by way of denying the accusation respecting the dog, he was subjected to a forfeit; and this equally happened if he cried “No me,” when it was the name of another person which was mentioned. The forfeits were disposed of as in the former case.—Popular Rhymes, pp. 125-126.
It will be seen that the first version of [Chambers] more nearly resembles “[Hey Wullie Wine]” (vol. i. p. 207), and that the latter part of the version given by [Mactaggart] is similar to “[Three Flowers]” (ante, p. 255, and the first part to “[Trades],” p. 305). Mr. W. Ballantyne sent me a version from Biggar as played when he was a boy. It is similar to [Mactaggart’s].
This game may indicate an earlier form of playing at forfeits than the “[Old Soldier],” “[Turn the Trencher],” and kindred English games. Mactaggart does not state that any article belonging to the person who perpetrates the offence was given up and afterwards redeemed by the owner performing a penalty. In Chambers’ versions this is done. It may be that, in Mactaggart’s case, each offending person paid his or her penalty immediately after committing the blunder or offence instead of a leader collecting the forfeits from all offenders first, and then “crying” all together afterwards. Whether the game originated in the practice of “tabu,” or was an outcome of the custom of restitution, or ransom, legally made for the commission of crimes, such as that called wergeld, the penalty or price to be paid to the relatives of a slain man, or of punishment for certain offences then being in the hands of a certain class of people, we cannot now decide; but it was customary for penalties to be attached to the commission of minor offences, and the punishment enforced without appeal to any legally constituted authority. The object of most of the present forfeit games seems to have been to make the offenders ridiculous, or, in the case of the above form of games, to find out the person loved or hated. In Shropshire “Crying the Weds” is the name given to the game of playing at forfeits. Wadd means a pledge. Jamieson says “Wears” signifies the “Wars.” “At the wars” is a common mode still retained of describing the life of a soldier. Ihre supposes that the early term wadd or wed is derived from wadd-cloth, from this kind of merchandise being anciently given and received instead of money; when at any time a pledge was left, a piece of cloth was used for this purpose, and hence a pledge in general would be called wadd.