496 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. No 103., Dec. 19. '57. 



just quoted, inasmuch as it suppresses the sacred 

 names : 



" Catten and Clemen comes year bj' year ; 

 Some of your apples, and some of your beer. 

 Trowl! trowl! 



Gentleman butler, fill your bowl ! 

 If you fill it of the best. 

 You shall have a good night's rest ; 

 If you fill it of the small, 

 You shall have no rest at all. 

 Apple, pear, plum, or cherry, 

 Anything to make us merry. 

 One for Peter, two for Paul, 

 Three for the merry men under the wall. 

 Master and Missis sit by the fire. 

 While we poor children trudge through the mire. 

 Our shoes are very dirty, our pockets are very thin. 

 Please, Master and Missis, to drop a penny in ! 

 Up the long ladder, and down the short pan, 

 Give me a red apple, and I'll be gone." 



Mr. Noake, in his Notes and Queries for Worces- 

 tershire, p. 216., gives tvro other versions; for the 

 original doggrel (whatever it may have been) has 

 been variously distorted according to the misap- 

 prehensions of the rustic carollers. In one we 

 have the line — 



" If its naught, gie us some saut ! (salt)." 

 And in the other the lines — ^ 



" Up the ladder, and down the can, 

 Give me red apples and I'll be gone ;" 



which appear to belong to the original version, 

 and which Mr. Noake thus explains : 



" The ladder alluding to the store of apples, generally 

 kept ill a loft ; and the can, doubtless, to the same going 

 down into the cellar for the beer." 



Mr. Noake also tells us that on St. Catharine's 

 Day it was formerly the custom of the Dean and 

 Chapter of Worcester — that day being the last 

 of their audit — to distribute among the inhabit- 

 ants of the College precincts a rich compound of 

 wine, spices, &c. called "the Cattern bowl;" and 

 that a modified edition of this custom is still ob- 

 served. He says further, — 



" A correspondent states that this custom originated, 

 or revived, when Queen Elizabeth visited Worcester, the 

 inhabitants sparing no expense to give her Majesty a 

 gracious reception upon St. Catharine's Day, when a 

 number of apples were strung before the fire, and the 

 citizens went with a can from house to house, begging 

 apples and beer, and repeating the above lines." 



CUTHBERT BeDE. 



PULL FOB PRIME. 



(2"'» S. ii. 431.) 

 " To pull for prime" is from the French, *' Tirer 

 k qui aura la primaute" (Bescherelle). This 

 French phrase signifies literally " to pull, or draw, 

 for who shall have the primacy." It is a phrase 

 of dicers and cardplayers, primaute being the lead, 

 or right of playing first. The meaning, therefore. 



is " to draw for the lead." This is done in various 

 ways ; e. g. by drawing a card, or by papers in a 

 hat. 



The^ corresponding phrase in English, " pulling 

 for prime," as applied to our national sports, is 

 somewhat more chivalrous, and does not mean 

 pulling or drawing for the lead in a sedentary 

 game of cards or dice, but, in a general sense, 

 pulling for the mastery ; that is, in .sports involv- 

 ing a trial of strength. In short, " pulling for 

 prime," is pulling for first ; and that, not by the 

 drawing of a card, but by main strength. 



When schoolboys, for instance, play at " French 

 and English," they divide themselves into two 

 equal parties, take hold of the two ends of a rope, 

 and try which party can pull the other across a 

 line chalked on the ground. Thus they " pull for 

 prime," that is, for frst, for the mastery, to see 

 which are "best men:" for the adj. prime does 

 not signify only first in time, but superior ; as in 

 prime quality, prime loheat, prime minister. The 

 party which first pulls all the others over the line 

 wins ; the adverse party is beaten. {Boys' Own 

 Booh) 



But the boyish games of the times we live in 

 are many of them but reproductions "of old Eng- 

 lish sports played by our stalwart forefathers in 

 manhood. So with the game now called " French 

 and English." It was a popular sport. Generally 

 on the Tuesday following the second Sunday after 

 Easter, "the townspeople, divided into parties, 

 were accustomed to draw each other with ropes " 

 (Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, p. 260.), thus " pull- 

 ing for prime," or pulling for the mastery or 

 preeminence. Preeminence may be deemed too 

 strong a term ; but we find the very same ex- 

 pression employed where the trial was simply that 

 of drawing lots. " My governesse will have us 

 draw cuts" (who shall first tell a tale) ; and in 

 drawing " blind fortune gave her [Mopsa] the 

 preheminence" (^Arcadia, book ii. ch. xiv.) 



This trial of strength by pulling was sometimes 

 varied. Thus in a masque exhibited to Queen 

 Elizabeth in Wanstead Gardens, Epsilus, a shep- 

 herd, and Therion, a forester, were rivals for the 

 Queen of the May ; both " brought their partakers 

 with them;" and presently " thei'e was heard in 

 the woods a confused noise, and forth-with there 

 came out six sheapherds with as many forsters 

 [foresters] hailing and pulling to whetherside they 

 should draw the Ladie of May " (^Additions to the 

 Arcadia) — the much-pulled " Ladie," probably, 

 some hapless youth in a girl's dress. But be it 

 observed there was strictly a contest for prime, 

 that is, for first, for superiority, throughout the 

 day ; for " the shepeheards and the foresters grew 

 to a great contention whether of their fellows had 

 sung better, and so whether the estate of shep- 

 heards or forresters were the more worshipfull." 



Sometimes, again, the pulling took the form of 



