The mother and Sunday retire, as if to go there, but, not finding them, again return to the witch, who this time sends them to Westgate, then to Southgate and Northgate. At last one of the children pops her head up over the witch's shoulder, and cries out, "Here we are, mother." Then follows this dialogue:--
O. W. Then the blood will stream over the floor.
The mother at this loses patience, and pushes her way in, the witch trying in vain to keep her out. She, with all her children, then chase the witch until they catch her; when they pretend to bind her hand and foot, put her on a pile, and burn her, the children fanning the imaginary flames with their pinafores. Sometimes the dialogue after "Here we are, mother," is omitted, and the witch is at once chased.
Mr. Halliwell Phillips calls this the "Game of the Gipsy," and gives some rhymes to which it is played, but I have never heard them in this county.
The next, a game quite unknown to me, I took down from the lips of a little girl in West Cornwall, in 1882, who told me it was a great favourite with her and her playmates.
One of the party is chosen for ghost (if dressed in white so much the better); she hides in a corner; the other children are a mother and daughters. The eldest daughter says:
"Mother, mother, please give me a piece of bread and butter."
M. Let me (or "leave me") look at your hands, child. Why, they are very dirty.
E. D. I will go to the well and wash them.
She goes to the corner, the ghost peeps up, and she rushes back, crying out--
M. Nonsense, child! it was only your father's nightshirt I have washed and hung out to dry. Go again.
The child goes, and the same thing happens. She returns, saying--
M. Nonsense, child! we will take a candle, and all go together to search for it. The mother picks up a twig for a candle, and they set off. When they come near to the ghost, she appears from her hiding-place, mother and children rush away in different directions; the ghost chases them until she has caught one, who in her turn becomes ghost.
I thought this game was a thing of the past, but I came on some children playing it in the streets of Penzance, in 1883. It may be played by any number, and, as in the two former games, one is chosen for mother. This is the dialogue: