Within the ring is the shepherd; the wolf approaches from without. A dialogue ensues:
"Who comes here?"
"Bloody Tom."
"What do you want?"
"My sheep."
"Take the worst, and leave the best,
And never come back to trouble the rest."
Salem, Mass.
A New Hampshire version makes the game represent a fox, who carries off chickens, thus:
"Who comes here this dark night?"
"Who but bloody Tom!—Which you druther be, picked or scalded?"
The Esthonian Fins have a characteristic children's game, based on the same idea, which may be quoted, to show how much imagination and spirit enter into the sports of a simple people. A watchman on duty at the sheepfold announces his office in a soliloquy:
Thus I guard my mother's lambkins,
Guard the flocks of my good mother,
Here before God's holy temple,
Here behind Maria's cloister,
Near the halls of our Creator.
At the house the mother, knitting,
Shapes the stockings of blue woollen,
Woollen stockings seamed with scarlet,
Jackets of the snow-white worsted.
I build hedges, stakes I sharpen,
Mould the brazen gratings strongly,
That the thieves come in and steal not,
Take not from the flock its sheep-dog,
Nor the wolf steal in and plunder,
Seize my mother's tender lambkins,
Rob the young lambs of my father.
A girl entices away the shepherd, while a boy as wolf carries off part of the herd, and another as dog barks. The mother of the family hastens up, beats the traitor, and the herdsmen go with staves to seek the lost lamb. The garland it wore is found and identified. With shouts of, "Lamb, lamb," it is found at last, caressed, and its bruises examined.
No. 51.
Blue-birds and Yellow-birds.
A ring of girls with their hands clasped and lifted. A girl, called (according to the color of her dress) blue-bird, black-bird, yellow-bird, etc., enters, and passes into the ring under an arch formed by a pair of lifted hands, singing to any suitable tune: