ries out,

"Prickey Sockey, for a pin,
I CAR not whether I LOSS or win."

The game is played by the one holding between her two fore-fingers and
thumbs a pin, which she clasps tightly to prevent her antagonist seeing
either part of it, while her opponent _guesses_. The head of the
pin is _sockey_, and the point _prickey_, and when the other
guesses, she touches the end she guesses at, saying, _"this for
prickey_," or "_this for sockey_;" at night the other delivers
her two pins. Thus the game is played and when the clock strikes twelve
it is declared _up_, that is, no one can play after that time.

The Christmas dinner consists of large pork or goose pies, which Brand
mentions as peculiar to this county; the goose is put in whole; they are
all marked on the top by a fork with the owner's initials; formerly it
was a religious inscription. In the afternoon (be it spoken perhaps to
their shame) they sally forth for a game at foot-ball, the first day on
which the game is played, the ball is what they call _clubbed up
for_, and he who can run away with the ball may keep it; but this
seldom occurs, as it is kicked to pieces before the game is over. And
this is Christmas Day here. At Kirby, a man named _Tom Mattham_
(since deceased) used to go round the town on Christmas Eve, about
twelve o'clock, with a bell, and chant a few carols; this was too solemn
to be compared to the London waits, but the custom still exists.

In most of the western parts of Devonshire a superstitions custom
prevails, that on Christmas Eve, at twelve o'clock, oxen in their stalls
are always kneeling, as in the attitude of devotion; but since the style
was altered, they do this on Old Christmas Eve only. At Whitbeck, in
Cumberland, they have a similar superstition; the _bees_ are said
to sing on the midnight before Christmas Day, and the oxen to kneel at
the same hour.

In many parts of the north too it should be observed, it is customary
for men to go out and cut large ash and holly sticks and entwine them
over the doors of their houses. And in Cumberland, little maidens
assemble on Christmas to _guess who their husband shall be_, which
is done by collecting peculiar sticks, and looking for some singular
mark upon them. This is the time when sweethearts too send round their
presents to the young lasses, by whom others are returned.

The custom of keeping open house is, I think, obsolete. Haddon Hall (so
late as Queen Elizabeth) was kept op