Played with a stick, one end burnt red-hot: it is passed round a circle from one to the other, the one who passes it saying this, and the one whose hand it goes out in paying a forfeit.
[SEE-SAW.]
A common game, children vacillating on either end of a plank supported on its centre. While enjoying this recreation, they have a song of appropriate cadence, the burden of which is,—
Titty cum tawtay,
The ducks in the water:
Titty cum tawtay,
The geese follow after.
[HITTY-TITTY.]
Hitty-titty in-doors,
Hitty-titty out;
You touch Hitty-titty,
And Hitty-titty will bite you.
These lines are said by children when one of them has hid herself. They then run away, and the one who is bitten (caught) becomes Hitty-titty, and hides in her turn. A variation of the above lines occurs in MS. Harl. 1962, as a riddle, the solution of which is a nettle.
[BEANS AND BUTTER.]
So the game of hide-and-seek is called in some parts of Oxfordshire. Children hide from each other, and when it is time to commence the search, the cry is,
Hot boil'd beans and very good butter,
If you please to come to supper!