a 
1888.] 281 
[Mooney. 
““You’re a liar, sir.’’ 
“Who then, sir?’’ 
‘*Black Cap, sir.” 
And unless Black Cap at once calls out “ What me, sir?’ and so on, he 
suffers the penalty, which is usually a daub of soot on his face or a smart 
slap on the cheek. This game is described also by Carleton. The mark- 
ing with soot occurs in some Scandinavian children’s games, and also 
among the Greenland Eskimo, who may have taken it from their Norse 
neighbors. * 
In another game known in Galway as Dam'sa nu G- cotnntnid’, the 
“Dance of the Rabbits,’’ the players hop about the room in a stooping 
position singing : 
Dam'sa na g-coinninid’, “The dance of the rabbits 
Gard‘ad: a h-eorna,— In the garden of barley— 
A coinnin is oige The youngest rabbit, 
B'ris 8€ @ C'08.} He broke his leg.” 
The one who first trips and falls is the unfortunate “youngest rabbit.’ 
Lady Wilde mentions a play called Hold the Light, ‘‘ where the passion 
of the Lord Christ is travestied with grotesque imitation’? and another 
known as the Building of the Ship, in which she sees “a symbolic rite 
still older than Druidism and probably a remnant of the primitive Arkite 
worship.”’ She goes on to say that ‘‘It was against these two plays that 
the anathemas of the Church were chiefly directed, in consequence of 
their gross immorality, and they have now entirely ceased to form any 
portion of the wake ceremonial of Ireland. Hindu priests would recog- 
nize some of the ceremonies as the same which are still practised in their 
own temples; and travelers have traced a similarity also in these ancient 
usages to the ‘big canoe games’ of the Mandan Indians.’’+ With regard 
to the first mentiond play I know nothing. Of the other, known in 
Gaelic as Gleus Loinge, ‘‘ Dressing of the Ship,’’ or Cuiread: Orann air a 
Long,§ ‘Putting a Mast on the Ship,’”’ it may be briefly stated that the 
so-called symbolic rite is simply a coarse practical joke at the expense of 
some innocent victim, and so far is it from being extinct that my informa- 
tion concerning it was obtaind from a young man who witnesd its per- 
formance at a wake at about the very time the lines above quoted wer 
written and almost within sight of the author’s mansion in Mayo. 
There ar several marrying games known as Marrying, Frimsy Framsy, 
the Zinker’s Marriage, etc. In each of these the master of ceremonies, 
who is usually fixed up to represent a priest, calls out from the company 
*E. B. Tylor, Old Scandinavian Civilization among the Modern Esquimaux, Jour. 
Anth. Inst., xiii, 854, London, 1884, 
+ Pronounced, Dhaw’ sa na giineenee, 
Goru a h’yoerna, 
A ctineen iss oiga 
Vrish shae a khus. 
t Lady Wilde, Ancient Legends of Ireland, i, 282, London, 1887. 
¢ Pronounced, Glaes Linga and Ctiru Crawn er a Lung. 
