Taste, love, taste, love, don t say nay, For next Monday morning is your wedding day. He bought her a gown and a guinea gold ring, And a fine cocked hat to be married in. --West Haddon, Northamptonshire; Long Itchington, Warwickshire (_Northants Notes and Queries_, ii. 105). III. Down in the valley the violets grow. Dear little ----, she blows like a rose. She blows, she blows, she blows so sweet. Come along in. Buy a shawl, buy a new black shawl, A bonnet trimmed with white and a new parasol.
The peculiarity about all percentage banking games is that no system, as a system, will beat them. The mathematical expectation of loss is so nicely adjusted to the probabilities of gain that the player must always get just a little the worst of it if he will only play long enough. Take any system of martingales, and suppose for the sake of illustration that in 1000 coups you will win 180 counters. The mathematical expectation of the game is such that just about once in a thousand coups your martingale will carry you to a point in which you will lose 200 counters, leaving you just 20 behind on every 1000 if you keep on playing. Every system has been carefully investigated, and enormous labour has been expended on the compilation of tables recording for a long series of time every number rolled at Roulette, and every coup raked in at Rouge et Noir, and the result of all systems is found to be the same, the bank succeeds in building up its percentage like a coral island, while the player’s money disappears like water in the sand. VINGT-ET-UN. Any number of persons may play Vingt-et-un, and a full pack of fifty-two cards is used. The _=cards=_ have no rank, but a counting value is attached to each, the ace being reckoned as 11 or 1, at the option of the holder, all court cards as 10 each, and the others at their face value. The cards are thrown round for the first deal, and the first ace takes it. The dealer is also the banker.
This game is usually marked with counters, or pegged on a cribbage board. Nothing is scored until the end of the hand, when each side reckons and claims its points. In order to avoid disputes there should be a previous understanding as to what points go out first in a close game. In the absence of any agreement to the contrary, the points count out in the following order:--Cards first, then Spades, Big Cassino, Little Cassino, Aces, and Sweeps. If the Aces have to decide it, the spade Ace goes out first, then clubs, hearts, and diamonds. If the sweeps have to decide it, only the difference in the number of sweeps counts, and if there is none, or not enough, the game is not ended, and another deal must be played. It is better to agree to _=count out=_ in twenty-one point Cassino; each player keeping mental count of the number of cards and spades he has taken in, together with any “natural” points. The moment he reaches 21 he should claim the game, and if his claim is correct he wins, even if his adversary has 21 or more. If he is mistaken, and cannot show out, he loses the game, no matter what his adversary’s score may be. If neither claims out, and both are found to be, neither wins, and the game must be continued to 32 points, and so on, eleven points more each time until one player claims to have won the game.
pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | TRANSCRIBER S NOTES: | | | | Text printed in italics in the original work is presented here | | between underscores, as in _text_. Similarly, bold face in the | | original is represented as =text=. | | | | Footnotes have been moved to the end of the description of the | | game. | | | | [Illustration] means that there is an illustration present in the | | text; [Music] means a transcription in musical notation. | | | | [Greek: text] represents a transcription of Greek text. [=a] and | | [=e] represent a-macron and e-macron, respectively. The oe- | | ligature is transcribed as [oe]. | | | | More Transcriber s Notes may be found at the end of this text. | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ A DICTIONARY OF BRITISH FOLK-LORE EDITED BY G.
In Norfolk, Holloway (_Dict. Prov._) says that nine round holes are made in the ground, and a ball aimed at them from a certain distance. A second game is played with a board having nine holes, through one of which the ball must pass. Nares quotes several authors to show the antiquity of the game. He shows that the Nine Men s Morris of our ancestors was but another name for Nine Holes. Nine, a favourite and mysterious number everywhere, prevails in games. Strutt (_Sports_, p. 384) also describes the game as played in two ways--a game with bowling marbles at a wooden bridge; and another game, also with marbles, in which four, five, or six holes, and sometimes more, are made in the ground at a distance from each other, and the business of every one of the players is to bowl a marble, by a regular succession, into all the holes, and he who completes in the fewest bowls obtains the victory. In Northamptonshire a game called Nine Holes, or Trunks, is played with a long piece of wood or bridge with nine arches cut in it, each arch being marked with a figure over it, from one to nine, in the following rotation--VII.
B. Gomme). I. There stands a lady on the mountain, Who she is I do not know; All she wants is gold and silver, All she wants is a nice young man. Choose one, choose two, choose the fairest one of the two. The fairest one that I can see, Is pretty ----, walk with me. --Barnes, Surrey (A. B. Gomme). II.
If the opposite colour wins, he pays all bets in the triangle marked _=Inverse=_. All bets are paid in even money, there being no odds at this game. Although black is the first colour dealt for, both it and inverse are ignored in the announcement of the result, red and colour being the only ones mentioned, win or lose. If the same number is reached for both colours, it is called a _=refait=_, and is announced by the word, “Après,” which means that all bets are a stand-off for that coup. If the refait happens to be exactly 31, however, the bank wins half the money on the table, no matter how it is placed. The players may either pay this half at once, or may move their entire stake into the first prison, a little square marked out on the table, and belonging to the colour they bet upon. If they win the next coup, their stake is free; if not, they lose it all. Should a second refait of 31 occur, they would have to lose a fourth of this imprisoned stake, and the remainder would be moved into a second prison, to await the result of the next coup, which would either free it or lose it all. _=Probabilities.=_ It has been found that of the ten numbers that can be dealt, 31 to 40, the number 31 will come oftener than any other.
You are backing Mr. Smith, and want to know the probability of his winning the first game. There are only two possible events, to win or lose, and both are equally probable, so 2 is the denominator of our fraction. The number of favourable events is 1, which is our numerator, and the fraction is therefore ½, which always represents equality. Now for the successive events. Your man wins the first game, and they proceed to play another. What are the odds on Smith’s winning the second game? It is evident that they are exactly the same as if the first game had never been played, because there are still only two possible events, and one of them will be favourable to him. Suppose he wins that game, and the next, and the next, and so on until he has won nine games in succession, what are the odds against his winning the tenth also? Still exactly an even thing. But, says a spectator, Smith’s luck must change; because it is very improbable that he will win ten games in succession. The odds against such a thing are 1023 to 1, and the more he wins the more probable it is that he will lose the next game.
Hollis). IX. The trees are uncovered, uncovered, uncovered, The trees are uncovered, Isabella, for me! Last night when we parted we were all broken-hearted, Isabella, Isabella, Isabella, for me! Then give me your hand, love, your hand, love, your hand, love, Then give me your hand, love, and a sweet kiss from you. --Earls Heaton (Herbert Hardy). X. When the trees are uncovered, Isabellow, for me. Last night when we parted She was nigh broken-hearted, Isabellow, Isabellow, Isabellow, for me. Your hand, love, your hand, love, Then give me your hand, love, Take a sweet kiss from me. --Winterton, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire (Miss Peacock). XI.
3. See Paddy from Home, Tip it. Fippeny Morrell Twice three stones, set in a crossed square, where he wins the game that can set his three along in a row, and that is fippeny morrell I trow. --_Apollo Shroving_, 1626. See Nine Men s Morice, Noughts and Crosses. Fire, Air, and Water The players seat themselves in a circle. One of the players has a ball, to which a string is fastened. He holds the string that he may easily draw the ball back again after it is thrown. The possessor of the ball then throws it to one in the circle, calling out the name of either of the elements he pleases. This player must, before ten can be counted, give the name of an inhabitant of that element.
Should three players have their proper number of cards, the fourth, less, the missing card or cards, if found, belong to him, and he, unless dummy, is answerable for any established revoke or revokes he may have made just as if the missing card or cards had been continuously in his hand. When a card is missing, any player may search the other pack, the quitted tricks, or elsewhere for it. If before, during or at the conclusion of play, one player hold more than the proper number of cards, and another less, the deal is void. 41. A player may not cut, shuffle, or deal for his partner if either adversary object. THE DECLARATION. 42. The dealer, having examined his hand, must declare to win at least one odd trick,[8] either with a specified suit, or at no trump. 43. After the dealer has declared, each player in turn, beginning on the dealer’s left, must pass, make a higher declaration, double the last declaration, or redouble a declaration which has been doubled, subject to the provisions of Law 54.
--MISCELLANEOUS. SEC. 1. If any one calls attention in any manner to the trick before his partner has played thereto, the adversary last to play to the trick may require the offender’s partner to play his highest or lowest of the suit led, and, if he has none of that suit, to trump or not to trump the trick. SEC 2. A player has the right to remind his partner that it is his privilege to enforce a penalty and also to inform him of the penalty he can enforce. SEC. 3. A player has the right to prevent his partner from committing any irregularity, and for that purpose, may ask his partner whether or not he has a card of a suit to which he has renounced on a trick which has not been turned and quitted. SEC.
Accroshay A cap or small article is placed on the back of a stooping boy by other boys as each in turn jumps over him. The first as he jumps says Accroshay, the second Ashotay, the third Assheflay, and the last Lament, lament, Leleeman s (or Leleena s) war. The boy who in jumping knocks off either of the things has to take the place of the stooper.--Cornwall (_Folk-lore Journal_, v. 58). See Leap-frog. All-hid A meere children s pastime (_A Curtaine Lecture_, 1637, p. 206). This is no doubt the game of Hide and Seek, though Cotgrave apparently makes it synonymous with Hoodman Blind. See Halliwell s _Dictionary_.
=_ Experience has shown that it pays to keep certain classes of hand in one section, either left to right or up and down. Many players put all the flushes in the vertical columns, and build the pairs, triplets and fours from right to left. Straights are uncertain quantities unless they are flush also and are seldom played for. Each card has a double value, and it may help to make up two hands of high scoring power, if well placed. The highest possible point value for a tableau would probably be five hands of four of a kind and five straight flushes, four of which would be royal, like this: [Illustration: 🂱 🃑 🃁 🂡 🃉 🂾 🃞 🃎 🂮 🃈 🂽 🃝 🃍 🂭 🃇 🂻 🃛 🃋 🂫 🃆 🂺 🃚 🃊 🂪 🃅 ] The odds against the cards coming from the stock in such order as to make a tableau like this possible would be enormous, but there are many sets of twenty-five cards that can be rearranged so as to make a much higher count than that actually arrived at in the solitaire. The player’s skill consists in anticipating the possibilities that certain cards will be drawn and in so arranging his table that if the hoped for card comes out, the most advantageous place will be found open for it. _=TWO OR MORE PLAYERS.=_ Any number can play this game, the only limitation being the number of packs available and space enough on the table for each one to lay out his own tableau. One player is selected as the “caller” and he shuffles his pack and presents it to be cut. In the meantime each of the others sorts his individual pack into sequence and suit, so as to be able to pick out any named card without unnecessary delay.
One oversight he makes, to which Blue at once calls his attention at the end of his move. Red has reckoned on twenty cavalry for his charge, forgetting that by the rules he must put two men at the tail of his middle gun. His infantry are just not able to come up for this duty, and consequently two cavalry-men have to be set there. The game then pauses while the players work out the cavalry melee. Red has brought up eighteen men to this; in touch or within six inches of touch there are twenty-one Blue cavalry. Red s force is isolated, for only two of his men are within a move, and to support eighteen he would have to have nine. By the rules this gives fifteen men dead on either side and three Red prisoners to Blue. By the rules also it rests with Red to indicate the survivors within the limits of the melee as he chooses. He takes very good care there are not four men within six inches of either Blue gun, and both these are out of action therefore for Blue s next move. Of course Red would have done far better to have charged home with thirteen men only, leaving seven in support, but he was flurried by his comparatively unsuccessful shooting--he had wanted to hit more cavalry--and by the gun-trail mistake.
Mr. Hardy says it is sometimes called Black-butt, when the opposite side cry Away we cut. Miss Dendy quotes an old Lancashire rhyme, which curiously refers to the different subjects in the Lancashire game rhyme. It is as follows:-- Little boy, little boy, where were you born? Way up in Lancashire, under a thorn, Where they sup butter-milk in a ram s horn. Another version is given in _Notes and Queries_, 3rd Series, vii. 285. (_d_) This is a dramatic game, in which the children seem to personate animals, and to depict events belonging to the history of the flock. Miss Burne groups it under her dramatic games. Blind Bell A game formerly common in Berwickshire, in which all the players were hoodwinked except the person who was called the Bell. He carried a bell, which he rung, still endeavouring to keep out of the way of his hoodwinked partners in the game.
A different set of indicator cards is required for every different number of tables in the game. They are the invention of the late E.C. Howell of Washington, D.C., and have been arranged for any number of pairs from four to thirty-four. _=INDIVIDUALS.=_ When four play memory duplicate, one of the four, usually S, retains his seat and keeps the score, the others changing places right and left alternately, each playing with S as a partner for 8 hands. These changes successively bring about the three following positions:-- c | b | a a b | a c | c b S | S | S | | Hands:--1 to 4 | 5 to 8 | 9 to 12 For the overplay, the trays are reversed, the hands originally dealt N & S being placed E & W; but the players continue to change right and left alternately. This brings the same partners together, but on different sides of the table.