III. Come ye by the salmon fishers? Come ye by the roperee? Saw ye my dear sailor laddie Sailing on the raging sea? Tip for gold and tip for silver, Tip for the bonnie laddie I do adore; My delight's for a sailor laddie, And shall be for evermore. Sit you down, my lovely Elsie, Take your baby on your knee; Drink your health for a jolly sailor, He will come back and marry you. He will give you beads and ear-rings, He will give you diamonds free; Sailors they are bonnie laddies, Oh, but they are neat and clean! They can kiss a bonnie lassie In the dark, and A, B, C; When the sailors come home at evening They take off their tarry clothes, They put on their light blue jackets, That is the way the sailors go.
A circle is formed, and the children dance round singing. Before beginning they agree which of the players is to be named in the fifth line of the Rosehearty version.
Jamieson's _Dictionary_ (_sub voce_), "Schamon's Dance," says, "Some particular kind of dance anciently used in Scotland."
Blaw up the bagpyp than, The schamon's dance I mon begin, I trow it sall not pane.
--"Peblis to the Play," _Chronicles of Scottish Poetry_, i. 135.
Pinkerton defines salmon as "probably _show-man_, _shaw-man_."
This is something like "Hide and Find." The name of Salt Eel may have been given it from one of the points of the game, which is to baste the runaway individual, whom you may overtake, all the way home with your handkerchief, twisted hard for that purpose. Salt Eel implies on board ship a rope's ending, and on shore an equivalent process.--Moor's _Suffolk Words and Phrases_.
Two sides are chosen in this game. An even number of boys, say eight on each side. Half of these run out of the line, and are chased by half of the boys from the other side. If two out of four get "home" to door or lamp-post, they _save all_ the prisoners which have been made; if two out of four are caught before the others get "home," the side catching them beats.--Deptford (Miss Chase).
A game undescribed, recorded by the Rev. S. D. Headlam as played by some Hoxton school children.--_Church Reformer_, 1894.
A paper-knife, or thin slip of wood, is placed by one player on his open palm. Another takes it up quickly, and tries to "scat" his opponent's hand before he can draw it away. Sometimes a feint of taking the paper-knife is made three or four times before it is really done. When the "scat" is given, the "scatter" in his turn rests the knife on his palm. Scat is the Cornish for "slap."--_Folk-lore Journal_, v. 50.