a terrific game requiring large amounts of ankle and foot dexterity alongside feline-like balance. You gain one point if you make your opponent stumble and two points if they fall.
Charlie Chaplin Walking Trippy is a silent-movie variant of the game. This version involves adopting the bow-legged swagger of the movie star and twirling a cane or rolled-up umbrella. This additional weapon can be carried upside down, allowing the use of the curved handle to catch an ankle as you pass.
Ringing the Bull/Wallhooky
Simple to set up and play, but quite addictive, Ringing the Bull (or Wallhooky, as it is sometimes known) is an ancient pub game which was reputedly introduced to England by the Crusaders. Along with spices, carpets and writing paper, they brought back a game that involves a brass ring and a stuffed animal head with a hook attached to its nose. The game retains its popularity in the North of England and the Caribbean, which was presented with it by early settlers. To play, attach a bull’s nose ring to a string from the ceiling and then attach a hook to the wall in such a position that the bull’s ring will hook on with the string remaining taut. (Traditionally the hook was fitted to the nose of a stuffed animal’s head mounted on the wall.) Each player stands in the pre-determined throwing position and has a set number of throws to get the ring hooked. The player with the highest number of rings hooked is the victor.
Extra points can be scored for throws that perform a complete circle before getting hooked, but you are talking advanced Wallhooky there.
Mangel-wurzel Skittles
Mangel-wurzel Skittles is an ancient British West Country pub game that has those twin magic ingredients of simplicity and stupidity.
A mangel-wurzel (a large beetroot-like vegetable) has a rope tied to it which is attached to the ceiling of the room. The skittles are created by players standing on narrow 15cm-high wooden blocks. Players are best arranged in a traditional diamond formation. Which person gets which podium can be decided by drawing straws. The mangel-thrower then launches the mangel-wurzel into the skittles. Players take it in turn, as in normal skittles, to knock over as many people as possible.
Walnut Fighting
The great disadvantage of conker fighting is its seasonal nature, so if you find yourself longing for a game outside of autumn you should learn the joys of conker fighting’s long-lost cousin, Walnut Fighting.
Walnut Fighting—the true king of seed-related fight games—was last big around the 1900s, and not many people today realise the fun that can be had with just some empy walnut shells.
To play, you need to crack open some walnuts and eat the nuts inside so that you end up with at least two undamaged half shells. A player takes a shell and places it flat-part down on the table. Their opponent does the same so that the pointed parts of the shells are touching. By applying pressure on the back of the shells, each player then tries to force their opponent’s to crack. The first shell to shatter, or just crack, loses.
In the late eighteenth century the shells of snails were used in a similar contest called Conquering Shells. Shells were pressed against each other as above and the first to crack lost. Obviously, if you wanted to revive this game today you would have to use empty snail shells. A pan of snails fried gently in garlic butter makes a perfect pre-game meal.
Snapdragons
On Christmas Eve many families try to decide which game to play. Either a classic board game, a cosy parlour game or maybe even a DVD quiz game. Please don’t make those mistakes, there is only one game for Christmas Eve: Snapdragons.
Very popular from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, Snapdragons, or Flapdragons as it is also known, has explicably declined in popularity.
All you need to play is a bowl, some matches, raisins and brandy…and the address of your nearest accident and emergency department. Gather everyone around the dining-room table, place a large flat dish in the centre and into this scatter a good handful of raisins. Pour a layer of brandy or cognac over the dried
fruit, then set fire to the brandy and dim the lights. Players take it in turns to pluck a raisin out of the burning liquid and quickly eat it.
For a more competitive edge to the game, use larger dried fruit such as apricots, and stuff one of these with a lucky sixpence.
Shoeing the Wild Mare
Shoeing the Wild Mare is a traditional and totally mad Christmas game that goes back to at least the early seventeenth century.
To play, get a strong wooden beam, a few centimetres wide, and suspend it from the roof by two ropes of even length. The beam is the ‘mare’ of the title and should be level, yet high enough above the floor so that the players’ feet are off the ground. A player, ‘the farrier’, then sits on the ‘mare’ in the centre, a leg on either side. This player has a hammer and has to give the underside of the beam ‘four time eight blows’ at a designated spot. If they fall off, it is someone else’s turn.
Much hilarity, and the odd broken shoulder ensues.
Shoeing the Mare appears in its own nursery rhyme, Shoeing:
Shoe the colt,
Shoe the colt,
Shoe the wild mare;
Here a nail,
There a nail,
Yet she goes bare.
Balance, Burn and Splash
Balance, Burn and Splash is a medieval game that is a combination of Snapdragons and Shoeing the Wild Mare. It is hardly an overstatement to say that this game is due a revival, as it probably hasn’t been played in the last five hundred years.
To play, simply place a narrow plank on two trestles. In the centre, underneath the plank, position a large tub or pool full of water. At one end of the plank place a lighted candle. Players must now balance themselves in the middle of the plank, above the water, holding an unlit candle, and must try to light it by stretching and shuffling towards the lit one, then return to their starting position whilst keeping their candle burning. Any player who puts a foot down or falls into the tub is out and it is the next player’s turn.
Ah, the great outdoors: fresh air, unspoilt countryside, amazing views, flicking sponges of beer into people’s faces…Yes, the outdoors has it all, and included here are some of the most unusual games you can play in the open air.
Three Three-legged Games
Nothing beats that slightly helpless feeling you get when you have your leg tied tightly to a partner’s. For an adult Three-legged Butterfly Hunting
