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| SNÆ #3. 2014 |
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| SNÆ READING ROOM: |
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| JOHN DREVER : PAPA WESTRAY GAMES |
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| 3. |
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Then there were the " Gyro " nights. I wonder if such a thing ever takes place in any other of our islands. [This is not a school game, but we were nearly all scholars who played at it.] I wonder if there is anything pertaining to old Norse customs in it. Well, each of the smaller boys got a long bundle of simmans and got it lit and so had a torch. This was to entice the "gyros," the hobgobblins. Then we generally kept in pairs. Sometimes we would light a fire and desert it. Then the " gyro " would be drawn away to this fire. Sometimes we formed into a procession, but the procession soon broke up when the " gyro " got after us. The " gyro " was just, one of the bigger boys with a mask on. The " gyros " generally went in pairs, and might be dressed simply like two old women. By this disguise we were very often cheated, as it was no unusual thing for one good woman to be visiting another, and one would be accompanying the other part of the way home. But sometimes the disguise of the "gyro " was quite unmistakeable. He might have on some grotesque headgear, then some woman's garment about the body, and about the legs he would have loose simmans tied around the waist by a piece of rope.
If the "old woman" turned out to be a " gyro " we very soon knew, as each of them had concealed about his person a piece of rope or a tangle, and we very soon felt the weight of it somewhere on our body. Of course we had to run for dear life, and sometimes when we did run at our best we were caught and just received as many strokes as the "gyro" was pleased to give us. Shall I liken the "gyro" to fate which is always dogging us here? Then we could say nothing either, but just take all and grin. It was lucky for us it was dark so that no one saw our facial expression. Some of the "gyros" were so encumbered with rags and tatters and simmans that they could not run.
This only took place in February. I have seen the fields above our house at home just bright on a dark night in winter. Sometimes the farmers were afraid that we would set fire to their stacks. But we did enjoy the "gyro" nights. We just revelled in them. But I think there is none of that there now.
John Drever 1921 |
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| ABOUT THE AUTHOR: |
| John Drever (of Cott) was born in Papa Westray in 1886 |
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PAPA WESTRAY GAMES by John Drever
written in 1921 and published in SNÆ #3. 2014 |
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