The games of The Lady of the Land and Little Dog have parallels in the foreign game of children changing sides, fourteen variations of which were collected from different parts of northern Europe by Mannhardt (M., p. 273). The closest parallel to The Lady of the Land is played in Belgium, in which sides are taken by two leaders, of whom the one has many daughters and the other has none. The game is called Riche et pauvre and the following verses are sung:—
Je suis pauvre, je suis pauvre, Anne Marie Jacqueline;
Je suis pauvre dans ce jeu d'ici.—
Je suis riche, je suis riche, Anne Marie Jacqueline;
Je suis riche dans ce jeu d'ici.—
Donnez-moi un de vos enfants, Anne Marie Jacqueline,
Donnez-moi un de vos enfants, dans ce jeu d'ici.
(M., No. 13.)
"I am poor, I am poor in this game, I am rich in this game. Give me one of your children, in this game."
This is continued as in the Babyland game till every child has had its turn. There is no sequel.
In the German game the woman who owns the children is called sometimes Mary, sometimes Witch, but usually she has the name of a heathen divinity. Thus in Mecklenburg she is Fru Goden or Fru Gol (No. 11). Gode is the name of a mother divinity, who, as Godmor, is the mother of Thor (Gr., p. 209, note). In the game as played in Prussia (No. 10), in Elsass (No. 3), in Swabia (No. 2), and in Aargau (No. 4), she is Frau Ros or Frau Rose, that is Lady Ros or Rose; while in Pommerellen she is either Ole Moder Rose or Ole Moder Taersche (No. 1), a word that signifies witch. In Holstein, on the other hand, the alternative is recorded as Fru Rosen or Mutter Marie, Mother Mary (No. 9), while in Appenzell (No. 5) and near Dunkirk (No. 6) the owner of the children is Marei Muetter Gotts, i.e. Mary the Mother of God. Mannhardt points out that Ross, sometimes Rose, is the name of a German mother divinity who occurs frequently in German folk-lore. I have come across Mother Ross in our own chapbook literature, where the name may be traditional also. Mary indicates the substitution of a Christian name in the place of the older heathen one. In Sweden the owner of many babes is Fru Sole, who is represented as sitting in heaven surrounded by her daughters, who are described as chickens (No. 14).
The game of securing children is called in Switzerland Das Englein aufziehen (No. 5), that is, "the drawing forth of an angel." The word Engel, angel, according to the information collected by Mannhardt, originally designates the spirit that awaits re-birth. For the heathen inhabitants of Northern Europe, including the Kelts, were unable to realize individual death. They held that the living spirit passed away with death, but continued in existence, and again reappeared under another shape. In the civilization that belonged to the mother age, these spirits or angels that awaited re-birth, peopled the realm which was associated with divine mothers or mother divinities. At a later period, transferred into Christian belief, they were pictured as a host of winged babes, whom we find represented in mediaeval art hovering around the Virgin Mother and Child.
The land in which the unborn spirits dwelt, is generally spoken of in German nursery and folk rhymes as Engelland, an expression which forms a direct parallel to the expression Babyland of our game. Thus the Woman of Babyland, like Frau Rose or Frau Gode of the German game, was in all probability a divine mother, who was the owner of the spirits or babes that awaited re-birth.
In the estimation of Mannhardt, the game in which children are drawn from one woman into the possession of the other, preserves the relics of a ceremonial connected with the cult of the mother divinity. It visibly set forth how the spirits of the departed were drawn back into life (M., p. 319). Perhaps we may go a step further. The study of folk-lore has taught us that to simulate a desired result is one way of working for its attainment. Women who were desirous of becoming mothers, both in England and in Germany, were wont to rock an empty cradle. They also visited particular shrines. Of the rites which they practised there we know nothing. Perhaps the Babyland game originated not as an ideal conception, but preserves the relics of a rite by which women sought to promote motherhood. This assumption is supported by various features that are incidental to the game.
Thus the game, both in England and abroad, is essentially a girls' game, and the words that are used indicate that it is played by them only. Even where the generality of the players are designated as "children," the leaders are invariably girls.
Again, in some versions of the foreign game (Nos. 8, 9) there is mention of salt. The woman who asks for a child, complains that she has lost those that were given to her; she is told that she ought to have sprinkled them with salt (No. 8). Sprinkling with salt is still observed at Christian baptism in some districts, and such sprinkling is said to make a child safe.[40]