_best_, with their wrists adorned with rows of _pins_, running
about from house to house inquiring who will play at the game. The door
is opened, and she cries 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.