Chicken come Clock.
[See “[Fox and Goose],” “[Hen and Chicken],” vol. i. pp. 139-141, 201; [vol. ii. p. 404].]
The children, boys and girls, squat down and take hold of hands, going round, and saying—
Chicken come clock around the rock,
Looram, lorram, lumber lock.
Five mile and one o’clock,
Now the thief is coming.
In comes Tod with his long rod,
And vanishes all from victim vad.
It is, it was, it must be done,
Tiddlum, toddlum, twenty-one.
Johnny, my dear, will you give me the loan of your spear,
Till I fight for one of those Kildares,
With a hickety, pickety pie.
At these words one lad, who has been hiding behind a tree, runs in to catch one of the chickens. As the rhyme is finished, they all run, and the fox tries to catch one, another player, the old hen, trying to stop him, the chickens all taking hold of her by the tail.
The fox has to keep on his hands and feet, and the old hen has to keep “clocking” on her “hunkers.”
Some of the children substitute these words for the latter part of the above:—
The crow’s awake, the kite’s asleep,
It’s time for my poor chickens
To get a bit of something to eat—
What time is it, old granny?
—Kiltubbrid, Co. Leitrim (L. L. Duncan).
Mr. Duncan says this game has almost died out, and the people were rather hazy about the words they used to say.