"The thride kind of nativitie, or bondage, is quhen ane frie man, to the end he may have the menteinance of ane great and potent man, randers himself to be his bond-man in his court, be the haire of his forehead; and gif he thereafter withdrawes himselfe, and flees away fra his maister, or denyes to him his nativitie: his maister may prove him to be his bondman, be ane assise, before the justice; challengand him, that he, sic ane day, sic ane yeare, compeirid in his court, and there yeilded himselfe to him to be his slave and bond-man. And quhen any man is adjudged and decerned to be a native or bond-man to any maister; the maister may take him be the nose, and reduce him to his former slaverie." Quon. Attach. c. lvi. s. 7. "This form of rendering one's self by the hair of the head seems to have had a monkish origin. The heathenish rite of consecrating the hair, or shaving the head, was early adopted among Christians, either as an act of pretended devotion, or when a person dedicated himself to some particular saint, or entered into any religious order. Hence it seems to have been adopted as a civil token of servitude. Thus those who entered into the monastic life were said capillos ponere and per capillos se tradere. In the fifth century Clovis committed himself to St. Germer by the hair of his head: Vit. S. Germer. ap. Carpentier, vo. Capilli. Those who thus devoted themselves were called the servants of God, or of any particular saint. This then being used as a symbol of servitude, we perceive the reason why it came to be viewed as so great an indignity to be laid hold of by the hair. He who did so claimed the person as his property. Therefore, to seize or to drag one by the hair, comprehendere, or trahere per capillos, was accounted an offence equal to that of charging another with falsehood, and even with striking him. The offender, according to the Frisic laws, was fined in two shillings; according to those of Burgundy, also, in two; but if both hands were employed, in four. Leg. Fris. ap. Lindenbrog. Tit. xxii. s. 64. Leg. Burgund. Tit. v. s. 4. According to the laws of Saxony, the fine amounted to an hundred and twenty shillings; Leg. Sax. cap. i. s. 7, ibid. Some other statutes made it punishable by death; Du Cange, col. 243." THREAD-MY-NEEDLE. [A GAME in which children stand in a row joining hands, the outer one, still holding his neighbour, runs between the others, &c. It is alluded to in Poor Robin's Almanack for 1738: "The summer quarter follows spring as close as girls do one another, when playing at thread-my-needle, they tread upon each other's heels."] TICK-TACK. IN Hall's Horæ Vacivæ, 1646, p. 149, are the following observations on the game of tick-tack. "Tick-tack sets a man's intentions on their guard. Errors in this and war can be but once amended." See a full account of the game in Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 873. TRAY-TRIP. GROSE says this was an ancient game, like Scotch-hop, played on a pavement marked out with chalk into different compartments. According to Mr. Halliwell, Dictionary, p. 886, it was a game at dice. TROULE-IN-MADAME. In the Benefit of the Ancient Bathes of Buckstones, compiled by John Jones at the King's Mede, nigh Darby, 1572, 4to. p. 12, we read: "The ladyes, gentle woomen, wyves, and maydes, may in one of the galleries walke; and if the weather bee not aggreeable to theire expectacion, they may have in the ende of a benche eleven holes made, intoo the whiche to trowle pummates, or bowles of leade, bigge, little, or meane, or also of copper, tynne, woode, eyther vyolent or softe, after their owne discretion; the pastyme troule-in-madame is termed." TRUMP. [AN old game at cards. In the French Garden for English Ladies and Gentlewomen, 1621, the titles of the following games occur: "Trompe, dice, tables, lurch, draughts, perforce, pleasant, blowing, queen's game, chesse." There is added: "The maydens did play at purposes, at sales, to thinke, at wonders, at states, at vertues, at answers, so that we could come no sooner," &c. It is also alluded to in the Cobler of Canterburie, 1608: " May not the Cobler of Kent, who hath beene the patron of many good companions, and tost over a paire of cards at trump from morning till night, not to be admitted so far as to find fault with Richard Tarltons Newes out of Purgatorie? Yes; and if he that writ it will not amend the latchet, Ile on with my night-cap and my spectacles, and make him shape the legge righter ere I have done."] TRUNDLING THE HOOP. SHOOTING with bows and arrows, and swimming on bladders, occur among the puerile sports delineated in the illuminations of the curious missal cited by Strutt. The hoop is noticed by Charlotte Smith, in her Rural Walk: To watch the sleeping top, with gay delight, Can find it centr'd in the bounding ball!" Paper windmills are seen in the hands of the younger sort of children in Mr. Ives's missal. TRUNKS. [ANOTHER name for the game of troule-in-madame, just mentioned. It is thus alluded to in Poor Robin's Almanack for 1715: "After dinner (for you must not have too long intermissions) to your sack again, typire, topire, and tropire, and for recreations to such liquor, billiards, kettle-pins, noddyboards, tables, trunks, shovel boards, fox and geese, and those two excellent games at cards, one and thirty, and drive knaves out of town." See extract in Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 892.] WEAPON-SHAWING. IN Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, iii. 512, the minister of Kincardine, co. Ross and Cromartie, says: "Nigh to the church there is an alley, walled in, and terminating in a large semicircle, appropriated to that ancient military exercise and discipline known by the name of weapon-shawing." WHIPPING THE TOP, OR WHIRLE-GIGGE. It is said in some of the voyages, I think it is in Hawkesworth's, that the top is well known among the Indians, some of whom pointed to our sailors, who seemed to wonder at seeing it amongst them, that in order to make it spin they should lash it with a whip. The following mention of whipping the top, occurs in Persius's third Satire: "Neu quis callidior buxum torquere flagello." Thus translated by Dryden : "The whirling top they whip, And drive her giddy till she fall asleep." Thus also in Virgil's Æneid, vii. 378: "Ceu quondam torto volitans sub verbere turbo, Thus translated by Dryden : "As young striplings whip the top for sport, 2 Northbroke, in his Treatise against Dicing, 1579, p. 86, says: "Cato giveth counsell to all youth, saying, 'Trocho lude, aleas fuge, playe with the toppe, and flee dice-playing." Playing with tops is found among the illuminations of an old missal in the possession of John Ives, described by Strutt in his Manners and Customs, ii. 99. To sleep like a town top is a proverbial expression. A top is said to sleep when it turns round with great velocity, and makes a smooth humming noise. The following custom is now laid aside a large top was formerly kept in every village, to be whipt in frosty weather, that the peasants might be kept warm by exercise, and out of mischief, while they could not work. See Reed's Shakes., 1803, v. 248.3 In the Fifteen Comforts of Marriage, p. 143, we read: "Another tells 'em of a project he has to make town tops spin without an eelskin, as if he bore malice to the school-boys." So in the English translation of Levinus Lemnius, 1658, p. 369: "Young youth do merrily exercise themselves in whipping-top, and to make it run swiftly about, that it cannot be seen, and will So Ovid, Trist. 1. iii. Eleg. 12: "Otia nunc istic: junctisque ex ordine ludis Cedunt verbosi garrula bella fori. Usus equi nunc est, levibus nunc luditur armis : 2 Cornelius Scriblerus, in his Instructions concerning the Plays and Playthings to be used by his son Martin, says: "I would not have Martin as yet to scourge a top, till I am better informed whether the trochus which was recommended by Cato be really our present top, or rather the hoop which the boys drive with a stick." Pope's Works, vi. 115. 3 In the Statistical Account of Scotland, xxi. 145, parish of Monquhitter, under "Amusements," we are told: "People who are not regularly and profitably employed, rejoice in a holiday as the means of throwing off that languor which oppresses the mind, and of exerting their active powers. So it was with our fathers. They frequently met to exert their strength in wrestling, in casting the hammer, and in throwing the stone, their agility at foot-ball, and their dexterity at coits and penny-stone." |