Vole, vole, vole, men cotillon vol’ra.”
One dance consisted of a sort of see-saw in different corners of the room, the couple repeating:—
“Dansez donc, ou ne dansez pas,
Faites le donc, ou ne le faites pas,
La-la-la.” (bis).
Dance and repeat!
Sark Games.
Editor’s Note.—In a Descriptive Account of the Island of Sark, published in Clarke’s Guernsey Magazine for September and October, 1875, the Rev. J. L. V. Cachemaille wrote:—“The public games and amusements of the Sarkese are few, and of a simple kind; and it is only children or young people who take part in them now-a-days. Formerly they used to have a favourite amusement, consisting of six or eight men, or big boys, who placed themselves in a line, one behind the other, and held each other firmly round the waist, while two outsiders made every effort to pull them apart one after another, till one only remained. This game they called ‘Uprooting the Gorse,’ and the last man represented the largest or principal root. Children still keep up this game, but not very universally, nor is it often played. It was one of the chief amusements of the ‘Veilles.’” Mr. Cachemaille also wrote:—“A person, either young or old, disguised himself in a manner to frighten people. At the end of a stick he carried the head of a horse or donkey, and this he placed on his own head, having first enveloped himself in a sheet. By means of cords, he made the jaws of this head to open and shut with a noise, then he ran after one or the other, endeavouring to bite them with the teeth of those horrible jaws; whereupon everybody ran away as fast as they could, and there was a general turmoil, the people either screaming with fright, or else laughing at the joke. This head made the round of all the “Veilles,” followed by a crowd of people, and, until quite latterly, one of these heads was still to be seen in one of the principal farm houses.”
