No. 157 Dixie’s Land
This is a variety of the last game, in which a monarch instead of a fairy is the owner of the ground trespassed upon. A line having been drawn, to bound “Dixie’s Land,” the players cross the frontier with the challenge:
On Dixie’s land I’ll take my stand,
And live and die in Dixie.
The king of Dixie’s Land endeavors to seize an invader, whom he must hold long enough to repeat the words,
Ten times one are ten,
You are one of my men.
All so captured must assist the king in taking the rest.
The word “man” seems to be used in the ancient sense of subject, as in the Scotch formula, where one boy takes another by the forelock (a reminiscence of serfdom), saying,
Tappie, tappie, tousie, will you be my man?
The game is played in much the same manner in Germany, with a rhyme which may be translated:
King, I’m standing on your land,
I steal your gold and silver-sand.