Chapter XLVI: The Golden Ball

_Source._--Contributed to the first edition of Henderson's _Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties_, pp. 333-5, by Rev. S. Baring-Gould.

_Parallels._--Mr. Nutt gave a version in _Folk-Lore Journal_, vi., 144. The man in instalments occurs in "The Strange Visitor" (No. xxxii.). The latter part of the tale has been turned into a game for English children, "Mary Brown," given in Miss Plunket's _Merry Games_, but not included in Newell, _Games and Songs of American Children_.

_Remarks._--This story is especially interesting as having given rise to a game. Capture and imprisonment are frequently the gruesome _motif_ of children's games, as in "Prisoner's base." Here it has been used with romantic effect.