No. 47 Green!
In parts of Georgia and South Carolina, as soon as a group of girls are fairly out of the house for a morning’s play, one suddenly points the finger at a companion with the exclamation, “Green!” The child so accosted must then produce some fragment of verdure, the leaf of a tree, a blade of grass, etc., from the apparel, or else pay forfeit to the first after the manner of “philop$oelig;na.” It is rarely, therefore, that a child will go abroad without a bit of “green,” the practice almost amounting to a superstition. The object of each is to make the rest believe that the required piece of verdure has been forgotten, and yet to keep it at hand. Sometimes it is drawn from the shoe, or carried in the brooch, or in the garter. Nurses find in the pockets, or in the lining of garments, all manner of fragments which have served this purpose. This curious practice is not known elsewhere in America; but it is mentioned by Rabelais, under the name by which it is still played in parts of Central France, “Je vous prends sans vert”—“I catch you without green.” The game, however, is not merely a children’s sport, and is played differently from our description. At Châtillon-sur-Inde it is during Lent, and only after the singing of the Angelus, that “green” is played. If any lady accost you and shows you her bough, you must immediately exhibit yours. If you have not such a one, or if your green is of a shade less rich than your adversary’s, you lose a point; in case of doubt, the matter is referred to an umpire. The game was much in vogue from the thirteenth to the fourteenth century, and is described as a May-game. “During the first days of May, every one took care to carry on his person a little green bough, and those who were not so provided were liable to hear themselves addressed, I catch you without green, and to receive, at the same instant, a pail of water on the head. This amusement, however, was in use only among the members of certain societies, who took the name of Sans-vert. Those who belonged to these had a right to visit each other at any hour of the day, and administer the bath whenever they found each other unprovided. In addition, the members so surprised were condemned to a pecuniary fine, and the income of these fines was devoted to merry repasts which, at certain seasons of the year, united all the comrades of the Sans-vert.”88
The practice has given to the French language a proverb: to take any one without green, to take him unawares.
Our child’s game was doubtless imported by Huguenot immigrants, who established themselves in the states referred to two centuries since, where they long preserved their language and customs, and from whom many well-known families are descended.
Footnotes
83 Played also on buttons. A friend informs us that, as a child, he had his buttons altered, in order that the oracle might return an agreeable response.
84 In Cambridge, Mass.
85 Dans ma main droite je tiens rosier,
Qui fleurira, qui fleurira,
Qui fleurira au mois de Mai.
Entrez en danse, joli rosier,
Et embrassez qui vous plaira.
—Canadian Round.
86 So recited.
87 A French version:
Au dedans Paris,
Vous ne savez ce qu’il y a?
Il y a-t-un bois,
C’est le plus beau bois
Parmi tous les bois;
Le bois est dans Paris.
Ah! le joli bois,
Madame;
Ah! le joli bois!
Il y a-t-une plume,
C’est la plus belle plume
De toutes les plumes;
La plume est sur l’oiseau,
L’oiseau est dans l’$oelig;uf,
L’$oelig;uf est dans le nid,
Le nid est sur la feuille,
La feuille est sur la branche,
L’arbre est dans le bois.
Ah! le joli bois,
Madame;
Ah! le joli bois!
88 The custom has been supposed to be derived from the ancient Roman usage of gathering green on the calends of May, with which to decorate the house.