Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
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First published 1968 (SND Vol. VII). Includes material from the 2005 supplement.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
PANCAKES, n.pl. See quot. and Bannock.
Also used to describe some of the participants in the game.Kcb. 1965 Stat. Acc.3 119:
One of the games played by the village [Palnackie] girls . . . is called “Pancakes”. The children pick a Mother, a Witch and a Maid. The Mother and the Maid take the other children into “a house”, the other children being known as pancakes. The Mother goes for a walk. The Witch now comes to the door of the house and asks the Maid to get her something from the kitchen and while her back is turned the Witch steals as many “pancakes” from the house as she can and carries them off.m.Sc. 2004:
Pancakes was played in Wishaw by schoolchildren in the 1980s. Lnk. 2004:
At
some point, all the pancakes have travelled from one side of the yard
to the other and the mother, having finally worked out what's going on,
has to go and get them back from the witch. ... I mostly remember
playing it when I was in the very early primary school stages so I would
have been one of the pancakes (the youngest kids always were) so
wouldn't have had to do much except be dragged from one end of the yard
to the other while shrieking hysterically.
