g children, when one
of them takes hold of the foretop of another and says:--

"Tappie, tappie, tousie, will ye be my man?"[137]

All over the country we meet with these rhyming or rhythmical formulae
which have legal significance. In the north the chief of the
Macdonalds gave grants in the following form:--

"I, Donald, chief of the Macdonalds, give here, in my
castle, a right to Mackay, to Kilmahumag, from this
day till to-morrow and so on for ever."

"Mise Donull nau Donull,
Am shuidh air Dun Donuill,
Toirt coir do Mhac-aigh air Kilmahumaig,
O'n diugh gus a maireach
'S gu la bhrath mar sin."[138]

At Scarborough there is an old proverbial saying as to "Scarborough
Warning," which has had various accounts given of its origin,[139] but
the true explanation of which is that it is the fragment of an ancient
legal formula of the kind we are investigating. Abraham De la Pryme
describes it in his seventeenth-century diary as follows:--

"Scarburg Warning is a proverb in many places of the
north, signifying any sudden warning given upon any
account. Some think it arose from the sudden comeing
of an enemy against the castle there, and haveing
dischargd a broad side, then commands them to
surrender. Others think that the proverb had it's
original from other things, but all varys. However,
this is the true origin thereof.

"The town is a corporation town, and tho' it is very
poor now to what it was formerly, yet it has a ... who
is commonly some poor man, they haveing no rich ones
amongst them. About two days before Michilmass day the
sayd ... being arrayed in his gown of state he mounts
upon horseback, and has his attendants with him, and
the macebear[er] carrying the mace before him, with
two fidlers and a base viol. Thus marching in state
(as bigg as the lord mare of London) all along the
shore side, they make many halts, and the cryer crys
thus with a strange sort of a singing voyce, high and
low:--

"'Whay! Whay! Whay!
Pay your gavelage, ha!
Between this and Michaelmas Day,
Or you'll be fined I, say!'

"Then the fiddlers begins to dance, and caper and
plays, fit to make one burst with laughter that sees
and hears them. Then they go on again and crys as