Spring in a Shropshire Abbey

“You ought to recollect that,” cried Bess, “because it was you that learnt us it before.”

Nana thought for a minute, and then repeated the old Shropshire version of the ancient game, which, tradition says, was written by Queen Bess one Christmas time for Lord Burleigh’s children. But Nana first of all explained to us the action of the game.

“You must know, mam,” she said, “that there are two parties – one of lads and the other of lasses.” “The first come up and call (the lads) —

“‘Here we come gathering nuts in May,
Nuts in May, nuts in May,
Here we come gathering nuts in May
On a cold and frosty morning.’

“Then the second lot,” as Nana called the lasses, “answer back, and shout —

“‘Who have ye come to gather away?’

And the first lot (the lads) reply —

“‘We have come to gather sweet Maude away.’
‘And who will you send to fetch her away?’
‘We’ll send Corney Rodgers to fetch her away.’

“Then the two parties pull,” she added, “and in the end a lass has to leave, and to go over to the lads’ side.”

“Who was sweet Maude, and who was Corney Rodgers?” I asked of Nana.

But she declared she didn’t know for certain, “but most-like he was some bad bold man who lived in the hills, and took off any maid he had a mind to.”

“Go on, go on!” cried the children enthusiastically, and clapped Nana vociferously.

“You know them all,” exclaimed Bess, “although you like pretending; but nurses always do.”

At this Nana, for all her head of snow, fell a laughing. She forgot all about “bedtime,” and stood before us with pink cheeks, whilst she exclaimed —

“They comes back! They comes back, the old plays.” And therewith begins to repeat “Here comes Three Dukes a Riding.” “Us used to play that – and a right pretty game it was,” she explained, – “on the village green, when the leaves were budding, betwixt the hours of school.”

And she recited aloud in her dear, funny, old cracked voice —

“‘Here comes three dukes a riding
With a ransome, dansome, day.’

“Then the lasses used to answer,” she told us, “and cry out —

“‘And what is your intent, sirs, intent, sirs?
With a ransome, dansome, day.’

“At this the lads used to shout —

“‘My intent is to marry, to marry.’

“And the maids would reply —

“‘Will you marry one of my daughters, one of my daughters?’

“Then the lads used to look highty-tighty, for all they had in their bones only the making of ploughmen, ditchers, and shepherds,“ Nana declared, “and they would say —

“‘You be as stiff as pokers, as pokers.’

And turn up their noses and strut back.

“Then the maids would answer, mincing like —

“‘We can bend like you, sirs, like you, sirs!’

“Then the lads would scan the lasses up and down, and sing back, as if every one of ’em had been born a lord, or high sheriff of the county at least —

“‘You’re all too black and too blowsy, too blowsy
For a dilly-dally officer.’

“Then the maids would sing with a bit of spite —

“‘We’re good enough for you, sirs, good enough for you.’

“Then a lad would leave his fellows, and say with a shrug of his shoulders, and crestfallen like —

“‘If I must have one I will have this,
So away with you my pretty miss.’”

And then old Nana told us that the maids would laugh and the lads would jeer, for in turn each lad had to choose a lass, and sometimes the lass he had a mind to wouldn’t go.

A RING OF ROSES

Then Nana, after a short pause, said, “Then there be another game as us used to play. Ring of Roses, some used to call it, and others Grandfather’s Rheum. But I cannot remember but one verse —

“‘A ring, a ring of roses,
A pocket full of posies.
One for Jack, and one for Jan
And one for little Moses.
A-tisha, a-tisha, a-tisha.’

and the fun was who could sneeze loudest. I remember Mike Mallard and Mary Wilston was wonderful at it. ‘Yer’ll die in a sneeze,’ folk used to tell them.”

“Nana can you think of no more, just one more.” For Nana had beckoned to Bess to say good night and go.

“Yes,” I said, “just one more.”

So old Nana yielded to our united pleadings, asserted it must be only one, as it was high time for her lad and lass to be in bed, and ended by reciting aloud a strange old Shropshire rhyme —

“‘Walking up the green grass,
A dust, a frust, a dust.