yew trees, and there is a saying that you can never count them twice alike; also, that there are 99 trees, and that, although one more has several times been planted, yet it will never grow.[1]
iii. Games. Until some thirty years ago, the great day of the year in Minchinhampton was Easter Monday, when people of all ages assembled for games in the Park formerly attached to the Manor House. The line of the ancient earthworks, before it was broken, ran through or else just skirted this Park; and the ground in or near it has many irregularities. A Roman road from Cirencester to Woodchester bounds the Park on one side, along it being a ditch and traces of a mound. An old tithe map, date about 1830, marks the fields adjoining this ditch, just beyond the Park, as "Ditch Yate." On the other side, the churchyard abuts on the Park. The games played here on Easter Monday included many of the traditional ones which the village children still keep up. But four were peculiar to the day[2]:—
(a) Each girl took with her to the Park three sticks specially cut for the purpose, set them up like a cat-gallows, and jumped over them. This was called "Jumping Bushes," and was peculiar to Easter Monday; it was never played by boys.
(b) The winding-up game known as "A bundle of matches" was also peculiar to the day. One person, (the rector generally, at the latest date), stood firm, while the rest with joined hands coiled round him like the spring of a watch. Bystanders were seized and dragged into the game. When all were closely wound up, they jumped up and down, shouting "A bundle of matches! A bundle of matches!"
(c) " Crooked Mustard" was played by girls only, and on no other day in the year. It is not known to the present generation of children. Three girls sat on the ground at short distances apart, so as to form the points of a triangle, while the others, holding hands, wound in and out between them. No words or song occurred. One elderly woman tells me that you played the game round three trees, if you could get them,—or, if not, then round three girls. None of the trees in the Park can now be identified
- ↑ Compare the custom of "clipping the church" at Cradley, Worcestershire, Notes and Queries, 5th S., vol. vi., p. 436.
- ↑ Cf. supra, p. 201.
