they do so as faithfully as they can. Conscious departure from custom is often regarded as a kind of moral delinquency, it is, in fact, a species of sacrilege. This conservatism of children and of the folk is the sheet-anchor of folk-lore. We have only to cross the Irish Sea to find that the English children are not singular in this association of comedy with tragedy. Croker' says: "The wake of a corpse is a scene of merriment rather than of mourning. In the evening a general assembly of the neighbours takes place, when they are entertained with whiskey, tobacco, and snuff. On these occasions songs are sung and stories related, while the younger part of the company beguile the time with various games and sports, such as blind man's buff or hunt the slipper. Dancing, or rather running in a ring round an individual, who performs various evolutions, is also a common amusement; and four or five young men will sometimes, for the diversion of the party, blacken their faces and go through a regular series of gestures with sticks, not unlike those of the English morris dancers. Amongst the games played at wakes are two which I have never observed out of Ireland, and from their being so universal with the peasantry, they are probably of considerable antiquity. One of these is called 'The Walls of Troy,' and the other 'Short Castle.'" The former game is a very old English game, which is generally known as "Nine Men's Morris." 2 Lady Wilde' gives a somewhat similar account of “ Wake Games." She refers to "Shuffle the Brogue" (" Hunt the Slipper "), "The Horse Fair," and "The Mock Marriage.' Lady Wilde says that nothing irreverent is meant, for it is 1 T. Crofton Croker, Researches in the South of Ireland, 1824, p. 170. 2 A. B. Gomme, Traditional Games, p. 414; the diagram on p. 418 is the same as that given by Croker on p. 171. * Ancient Cures, Charms and Usages of Ireland, 1890, p. 129. considered that whatever keeps up the spirits at a wake is allowable, and harmless in the sight of God. In towns the fun often degenerates into licence and drinking, and many games have been therefore forbidden by the priesthood, particularly the one called "The Mock Marriage," which often gave occasion for much scandal, and tumult and fighting amongst the young men; whereas, in the country wake, it would be deemed a disgrace for a man to create a disturbance or even to lose his temper, and the women and young girls were treated with the utmost respect. "Wake ceremonies are still held in the Irish cabins, where the men drink and smoke, and tell ancient stories, though the highly dramatic games of former times have almost entirely died out, 'for,' as the peasant narrator added, when concluding his account of the scenes he had witnessed in his early youth, there is no mirth or laughter to be heard any more in the country, the spirit has gone from our people, and all the old fun is frozen, and the music is dumb in poor Ireland now.'" We know that in the prehistoric times in Ireland, famous inter-tribal games were held near some of the tumuli of departed heroes or kings, similar to the funeral games of Patroclus that Homer has immortalised. It is a question for future research whether some of our games may not have had this origin and have subsequently been divorced from the funeral festival. If this can be shown to have been the case, then it is probable that certain of these games will be found to have had a magical or a symbolic significance which is at present entirely unsuspected. 66 One version of " Jenny jo" ends with: Poor Jinny jo is dead and gone, dead and gone, dead and gone, Poor Jinny jo is dead and gone, all the day long. "We've come to wake Jinny jo, Jinny jo, Jinny jo, We've come to wake Jinny jo, all the day long. Jinny jo has candles round her head," &c.' The wake and candles are probably an Irish innovation; at all events, an old Irish nurse remembered only the following fragment of " Jenny jo": "Jenny jo 's dead and gone, dead and gone, dead and gone, Jenny jo 's dead and gone, all the day long. Pipes and tobacco for Jenny jo, Jenny jo, Jenny jo, Miss M. Hayden, who gave me this and several other Irish games, writes: "The 'pipes and tobacco' seem rather odd." There are two explanations: the obvious one is that the tobacco is for the wake. We have seen that Croker refers to this custom, and Lady Wilde says: "There is always a plateful of tobacco and another of snuff placed on a table by the side of the corpse, and each man as he enters is expected to fill his pipe and pray in silence for a few The rhyme says that the pipes and tobacco are for" Jenny jo," that is, for the deceased person. Last year my friend Mr. R. Welch, the well-known landscape photographer of Belfast, took some photographs of an old graveyard at Salruck, Little Killary, West Galway, on some graves of which were deposited a large number of pipes, some quite new and still with the shavings with which they were packed in the bowl, others filled with tobacco. Were these offerings to the spirits of the deceased? An Irish journal indignantly denied that this occurred, and accused Mr. Welch of himself putting the pipes there in order to produce a photograph 1 "The Wares of Autolycus," Pall Mall Gazette, Jan. 18, 1897, p. 10. Loc. cit., p. 134. that would appeal to the English tourist. Mr. Welch, however, was vindicated, and we may charitably assume that the writer was ignorant that this custom was fairly common in Mayo and North Galway. I mention this circumstance, as facts which appear to tell against the intelligence of a sensitive people may be publicly denied, though they occur all the same. The distribution of tobacco and pipes is stated to be an act of hospitality to those who attend the funeral on the part of the deceased's relatives, who could not entertain such a large number in an ordinary way at home. The idea current among the people who smoke the pipes in the graveyard at the funeral is that it is unlucky to take them away. Why unlucky, if not the survival of a custom older than pipes in Ireland ? The custom of leaving some of the belongings of the deceased person, or of placing offerings, sometimes of food only, at the grave, is so widely spread among backward peoples that it is superfluous to multiply examples. I will give merely a single instance that came under my own observation at Cape York in North Queensland. On the grave of a native was the stretcher that had carried him to his last resting-place, at the head and foot of the grave were two posts, on to the top of the latter was tied a handkerchief, and on to the top of the former a second handkerchief and the pipe of the deceased, and close by was his tin "billy." It was very pathetic to see the belongings of the poor man put by his side ready for the use of his spirit, or perhaps it was the spirits of the objects which were for the use of the spirit of the man. And now I must close-not because I have exhausted the subject-indeed, I have touched on only a few of the problems that the toys and games of children suggest-but because I have come to an end of my space. We are now discovering the fact that if only we have the understanding, we can learn much of the past history of man from a study of our children. Two thousand years ago, as in our own days, might be seen "children sitting in the market-places, which call unto their fellows and say, We piped unto you, and ye did not dance; we wailed, and ye did not mourn.' This lament might well have been made to their eldersbut at last we are beginning to heed their piping and their wailing. |