| Summary: | geary Playing marbles in springtime. Who remembers the days when in the springtime, the sidewalks of St. John's which like its streets were unpaved, were lined with boys squatting around what we used to call mots in little groups of four, five or six, intently absorbed in playing marbles? These were the day's when a small boy's most prized possessions were a bag of marbles, and when he was the envy of the neighbourhood if he also had a glass "_taw_" or two. Of course such scenes belong to the past and we are most unlikely to ever see a return of the old Knuckle King days, when a boy was the envy of his peers if he was lucky enough to be able to shoot a marble anywhere he wanted around the rim of the _mot_ or into it. And what oldtimer, never experienced the shock of having some boy (usually a bigger one) come running towards your little group, shouting at the top of his lungs, _"gary, gary, gary,"_ then calmly stooping down and pocketing all the marbles for himself, as if this were his divine right. One day in school, our teacher, an Irishman by birth, asked the class if this had happened to any of us, and if so please put up our hands. I and several of the other boys, quickly responded by raising our right hands. Then he asked us if any boy in the class knew how this custom of "garying" had originated. He then told us that in time long past when the Irish, the British and the Picts in Scotland, were still pagan, the Druids or Shamans would go to some set- tlement, and cry aloud "gary, gary, gary," thus indicating that they, the men of the pagan Gods, and a pagan deity call- ed Garry was one of the more important of the Gods. In his name either food, shelter or transport had to be provided without question by the villagers, and that the re- quest or demand was always acceded to - something like tithes today. In another letter, I will relate how as a very small boy, I once caught a "_Lord_" or humpbacked trout, in Waterford River. Oldtimer St. John's Etym. MAY 25 1981 Used I and Sup Used I 1 Used I ...
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