The children of Galloway play at hide-and-seek with a little black-
topped flower which is known by them as the Davie-drap, meantime
repeating the following rhyme:--
"Within the bounds of this I hap
My black and bonnie Davie-drap:
Wha is he, the cunning ane,
To me my Davie-drap will fin'?"
This plant, it has been suggested, [7] being the cuckoo grass (Luzula
campestris), which so often figures in children's games and rhymes.
Once more, there are numerous games played by children in which
certain flowers are introduced, as in the following, known as "the three
flowers," played in Scotland, and thus described in Chambers's "Popular
Rhymes," p. 127:--"A group of lads and lasses being assembled round the
fire, two leave the party and consult together as to the names of three
others, young men or girls, whom they designate as the red rose, the
pink, and the gillyflower. The two young men then return, and having
selected a member of the fairer group, they say to her:--
'My mistress sent me unto thine,
Wi' three young flowers baith fair and fine:--
The pink, the rose, and the gillyflower,
And as they here do stand,
Whilk will ye sink, whilk will ye swim,
And whilk bring hame to land?'
The maiden must choose one of the flowers named, on which she
passes some approving epithet, adding, at the same time, a disapproving
rejection of the other two, as in the following terms: 'I will sink the pink,
swim the rose, and bring hame the gillyflower to land.' The young men
then disclose the names of the parties upon whom they had fixed those
appellations respectively, when it may chance she has slighted the
person to whom she is most attached, and contrariwise." Games of this
kind are very varied, and still afford many an evening's amusement
among the young people of our country villages during the winter
evenings.
Footnotes:
- Journal of Horticulture, 1876, p. 355. 2. Johnston's "Botany of Eastern Borders."
- "Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words." 4. Johnston's "Botany of Eastern
Borders," p. 57. 5. "Botany of Eastern Borders," p. 85. 6. "English Botany," ed. I, iii.
p. 3. 7. "Dictionary of Plant Names" (Britten and Holland), p. 145.