The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland (Vol 1 of 2): With Tunes, Singing-Rhymes and Methods of Playing etc.Gomme, Alice Bertha
History
The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland (Vol 1 of 2): With Tunes, Singing-Rhymes and Methods of Playing etc.
Gomme, Alice Bertha
Folklore -- Great Britain; Games -- Great Britain
In South Notts this game was called “Snobs.” It was played with small
stones or marbles. There were nine sets of tricks. First One-ers (of
which there were five in the set), then Two-ers (two in set), Three-ers
(three in set), Four-ers (four in set), Four Squares (four in set),
Trotting Donkeys (eight in set, I believe), Fly-catchers (six or seven
in set), Magic (five in set), and Magic Fly-catchers (five in set).
One-ers is played thus:—The five stones are thrown into the air and
caught on the back of the hand. If all are caught they are simply tossed
up again and caught in the hollow of the hand, but if any are not caught
they have to be picked up, one by one, another stone being at the same
time thrown into the air and caught with the one picked up in the hand.
Two-ers, Three-ers, and Four-ers, are played in the same way, except
that the stones not caught on the back of the hand have to be arranged
in twos, threes, and fours respectively by the hand on which the caught
stones are lying meanwhile, and then each lot has to be picked up
altogether. If the number that fall when the stones are first thrown up
won’t allow of this, the player has to drop the required number (but no
more) from his hand. In Magic the play is just the same as in One-ers,
except that instead of only throwing up a single stone and catching it
as the others are in turn picked up, the whole number, except those
remaining to be picked up, are thrown and caught. In Four Squares, four
of the stones are arranged in a square, each of them is then picked up,
whilst the remaining stone is flung upwards and caught; the one picked
up is then tossed up, and the one originally tossed up is put down in
the place of the other, which is caught as it descends, and the process
repeated “all round the square.” Trotting Donkeys is similarly played,
except that the four stones are arranged in a line—not in a square—and I
believe there is some other slight difference, but I forget what.
Fly-catchers is played like One-ers, except that the stone thrown into
the air while the others are being picked up, is not simply caught by
being allowed to fall into the hand, but by an outward movement of the
hand is _pounced on_, hawk-fashion, from above. Magic Fly-catchers is
played in precisely the same way, except that as in simple Magic, not
one stone, but all are thrown up and caught—that is, if there are four
on the ground one only is thrown up for the first, two for the second,
three for the third, and so on until they are all picked up. This is, of
course, the most difficult part of all, and, in fact, only experts were
expected to do it. Every failure means “out,” and then your opponent has
his turn. The winner is the one who gets through first. Such is the game
as I remember it, but I have an uneasy suspicion that I have missed
something out. I seem to remember one trick in which all the stones on
the ground had to be picked up at once _where they lay_—scrambled up so
to speak.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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