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Thread the Tailor’s Needle
This game needs as many participants as possible. It was often common for the whole village to take part!
First form a line, holding hands. The last in the row then runs to the top and passes under the joined hands of the first two, the rest of the line following, causing the second to last girl to spin prettily under the last girl’s arm. The first in the row has then become the last, and so repeats the run.
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As they run they cry ‘The tailor’s blind and he can’t see, so we must thread the needle’.
The girls will enjoy taking turns forming the eye or drawing the thread of children through the tailor’s needle.
‘Male and female, young, middle-aged and old ...take hands, and forming a long string , run violently through every street , lane and alley, crying ‘An eye! An eye! An eye!’ At last they stop suddenly; and an eye to this enormous needle being opened by the last two in the string ... till the thread of the populace run under and through; and continue to repeat the same, till weariness sends them home to bed.’
(An observer in Penzance, Cornwall. 1801)
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Cat after Mouse or Kiss in the Ring!
All the girls but one make a large circle holding hands. The girl outside, the ‘mouse’, taps one of the girls on the shoulder and then runs in and out under the arms of all the rest with the ‘cat’ in hot pursuit.
When the cat catches the mouse they both enter the circle and curtsey to one another. The mouse then joins the circle and the new mouse goes outside to tap another girl on the shoulder and the pursuit begins again. ‘When this game is played by an equal number of boys and girls, a boy must touch a girl, and a girl a boy, and when either of them be caught they go into the middle of the ring and salute each other: hence is derived the name kiss in the ring’.
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The ‘cat’ in the pink frock is pursuing the ‘mouse’ in and out of the circle.
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Frog in the Middle
The girl to be the frog sits on a cushion in the middle of the group whilst her friends run or sit around trying to reach her without being caught, crying:
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‘Frog in the middle you can’t catch me!’ The frog cannot leave her cushion until she has caught a friend, who then takes her place as the frog in the middle and the game begins again.
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Hunt the Slipper
The players sit in a ring on the ground (or the floor), with one person standing outside the ring. Those in the ring pass a slipper around underneath their clothing (which is why it works so well with 18th century girls’ frocks!) in such a manner that the person outside the ring does not know where it is. If she can guess correctly who has the slipper, that person must change places with her. Play then continues.
A variation on this is for the person outside the ring to turn her back on the ring. While she chants:
“Cobbler, cobbler, mend my shoe,
Get it done by half-past two.”
the slipper is passed round the ring. When she turns round, she must guess who has the slipper.
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Puss in the Corner
The girl who is to be puss stands in the middle while the other girls stand widely spaced at fixed stations around her, (at the corners of a room, or by bonnets placed on the ground outside).
When one of the girls cries ‘puss, puss’, all must change places without the puss gaining one of the stations. If she does, whichever girl is left out becomes the puss and the game begins again.
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