When this was played in the playground in Barnsley now in South Yorkshire, at the end the leader closed the circle by taking the hand of the girl at the wall so that everyone was facing outwards with arms crossed in front of them, and then whirled the circle around - clockwise, faster and faster until someone lost their grip and that usually resulted in tripping and falling, lots of scraped knees and bruised heads.

I suspect that it might not have been the traditional way of ending the game and that the circling should have been done differently.

In 'the farmer in the dell' the farmer chooses a wife, who then chooses a child, who chooses a dog, who chooses a bone, and then everyone tries to pat the bone. That could get pretty rough too with the poor bone being battered rather than patted.

I think the verses had the big ship sails, rocks, flounders (should be founders I think) on the allie allie oh, then the Captain says this will never never do, then the big ship sinks to the bottom of the sea.

The movements were three steps and a swinging up and lowering of the joined hands

the big ship sails (three steps, turn towards centre of loop)
on the allie allie oh (raise and lower hands, turn to face in direction of travel)
on the allie allie oh (three steps, turn)
the allie allie oh (raise and lower hands, turn)

and so on.