No. 152 Weighing
Two children, linking hands, form a “basket” (each grasping with the left hand the right wrist of the other, and with the right hand his left wrist), in which another child is lifted, who embraces with his arms the necks of his bearers. He is then swung to and fro, and finally made to strike the wall. If he lets go his hold, he is called “Rotten egg,” which is regarded as a highly ignominious name.
This title is also applied to the child who lets go in the “tug of war” in “London Bridge.” A similar lifting in a basket (as we have been told by one who remembered so playing in youth) formed, in Philadelphia, part of the same game.
The original meaning of this exercise is made clear by an Italian counterpart, in which it is called “Weighing.” The child after being lifted is made to jump over one of the lowered arms of his bearers, and if he escapes from their grasp is destined for Paradise, otherwise for the Inferno. The French usage is the same.133 Weighing, to decide whether the child should be angel or devil, sometimes forms part, also, of the German game corresponding to “London Bridge.”
Another English game shows us a relic of this practice—namely, that called “Honey-pots,” from which, as usual in children’s sports, the original religious idea has disappeared. A child is lifted and swung until the hold is relaxed, when the pot is said to weigh so many pounds.134
Other tests used in German games to decide whether a child shall be an angel or not, are—tickling, in which a sober face must be kept; jumping over a cord, or measuring the height. These customs of play are surviving forms of usages once equally common in English sports.