Children's Games with Things Marbles, Fivestones, Throwing and Catching, Gambling, Hopscotch, Chucking and Pitching, Ball-Bouncing, Skipping, Tops and Tipcat

by Opie, Iona; Opie, Peter

• ISBN13: 9780192159632
• ISBN10: 0192159631
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-04-23
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Iona Opie and the late Peter Opie have devoted their lives to the study of children. Now comes the final volume of their acclaimed trilogy on children's games. Together with Children's Games in Street & Playground (1969) and The Singing Game (1985), this volume completes the most comprehensive study this century. Based on thirty years of research, this intriguing volume focuses on games that use equipment of one kind or another--marbles, jump rope, balls--describing in colorful detail the objects used, the rules of play, and the accompanying rhymes and chants. The Opies examine the history of the games from their earliest appearance and they consider the wider social context, tracing the varying attitudes towards them over the past three hundred years, from pedagogical disapproval, to legal suppression, to the sentimental nostalgia of the present. Here then is the world of play, the imaginary space into which our young ones escape each day. Children's Games With Things is an evocation of this imaginary world as well as a reminder of our own past.

Author Biography

Iona Opie is a leading authority on children at play. With her late husband Peter, she has compiled such renowned collections as The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, Classic Fairy Tales, and The Oxford Book of Children's Verse. She lives in Great Britain.

Table of Contents

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS	xi	(3)
ABBREVIATIONS	xiv
1. SEASONS, AND OTHER SOCIAL ISSUES Seasons -- Games Disappearing -- Bans	1	(16)
2. MARBLES Castles -- Marble Board -- Ringy -- Three Holes -- Holie -- Follows -- Minor Games and Variations -- Beginning a Game -- Calls and Counter-Calls -- Kinds of Marbles, and Their Manufacture -- The Names of Marbles	17	(39)
3. FIVESTONES The Names of the Game -- The Basic Game -- Variations	56	(17)
4. THROWING AND CATCHING Broken Bottles -- Pig in the Middle -- Aiming -- Ledger or Kerbie -- Scrubby -- Wallie -- Echo -- Bad Eggs -- Duckstone and Cannon -- Donkey	73	(15)
5. GAMBLING Birds in the Bush -- Pitch and Toss -- Picture or Blank	88	(7)
6. HOPSCOTCH Aeroplane Hopscotch -- Six Beds -- Spiral Hopscotch -- Ball Hopscotch -- Broom Jump	95	(15)
7. CHUCKING AND PITCHING Chuckie -- Knocking Down Screws -- Line of Marbles, Buttons, Etc. -- Buttons -- Bang-Ups -- Bottle Tops and Other Flip-over Games -- Cigarette Cards and Other Picture Cards -- Nearest the Wall -- Knock 'Em Down -- Longsie -- Longsie -- Topsy -- Menko	110	(18)
8. BALL-BOUNCING Background to Ball-Bouncing -- Sevensy -- Plainsy, Clapsy -- Alairy -- Two-Balls and a Single Player -- Two-Balls in Scotland -- Words Changing with Actions -- Two-Balls and Several Players -- Action Rhymes -- Stocking Ball	128	(32)
9. SKIPPING Early History -- Single Skipping -- The Long Rope -- Taking Ends -- Stumbling in the Rope -- Speed of the Rope -- Bumps -- Swaying Games -- Bluebells, Cockle Shells -- Cups and Saucers -- Christopher Columbus -- Glasgow Waves -- Eaver Weaver -- Continuous Skipping -- Continuous Skipping: Special Games -- Skipping along the Rope -- Enders Walk Round in Circle -- Two Ropes -- Other Ways -- Elastic Skipping -- Ankle Skipping -- Boys and Girls -- The Chants -- Advertising Jingles -- Action Chants -- Action Chants with Built-in Instructions -- Chants with Improvised Actions -- Divination -- Calling In -- Songs and Rhymes for Plain Skipping	160	(147)
10. TOPS AND TIPCAT Tops -- Tipcat	307	(22)
GENERAL INDEX	329	(2)
INDEX OF THE NAMES OF GAMES	331	(6)
INDEX OF CHANTS	337