Beauty and the Beast, or Robinson Crusoe.

The class of games studied by the folklorists mentioned includes
mainly those of active and dramatic character as distinguished from
the board and implement games. Mrs. Gomme sees in their form, method
of playing, the dialogue often included, and the fact of their
continuance from generation to generation, an expression of the
dramatic instinct, and considers them a valuable adjunct in the study
of the beginnings of the drama. The student of games must find of
great interest Mrs. Gomme's classification by formation, the line form
being considered to represent, or to have grown out of, a contest
between people from different countries or localities; the circle
formation a representation of customs prevailing in one village, town,
or tribe, and so on, with the arch form or tug of war, the winding-up
games (as in Snail), etc.

Viewed in this light of their origin, games are especially
fascinating. They take one back to the atmosphere that pervades
romance: to quaint chronicles of kings and courtiers setting forth in
brilliant train for some game that is the heritage of the child of
to-day; to ladies-in-waiting on the Queen playing Babylon; to
shepherds congregating on the moors, or early village communities
dividing, over some forerunner of our college Football; to village
lads and lasses dodging through the cornstalks with Barley Break, or
milkmaids playing Stool Ball with their stools. For while it is
rightly said that the serious occupations of adults at one period
become the games of children at another, the statement omits an
intermediate fact that strongly impresses the student of games:
namely, that these activities, which at first were serious rites have
been used for sport by adults themselves before being handed down to
children; as though the grown folk should masquerade for a time in
their outworn garments before passing them on to following
generations. Considering the varied interests that find expression in
these games, one is further impressed with the fact that humanity
passes thus in review its entire range of experience, transmuting into
material for sport the circumstances of love and hatred, sorrow and
rejoicing, fear and veneration. Nothing is too exalted or humble, too
solemn or fearsome, to be the subject of these frolic events. Nature
in all her panoply is here in dramatized form or reference--earth,
stone, fire, and water; verdure and the kingdom of liv