Re: Heckedy Peg game

[Kimberly Connell <KConnell@CORTLAND.CNYRIC.ORG>]

Hello All,

Many thanks to those who offered suggestions to this query.  I had a little
luck.  I posted the question to two library listserves, an historical game
listserve, and to an address for Audrey Wood (with no reply as of today).
Below are the suggestions that I did get, however no definitive answers.
If these suggestions jogs anyones memory or there are more, please respond
and I will repost.  Thanks again, K.

This is an off the cuff reaction to your question but my recollection is
it is a game played with a pocket/jack knife and you flip the knife
different ways and try to get it to stick blade first into the ground.
Specific rules I don't know.  Maybe this much will help.


I remember playing this game.  Let's see if I remember how to
play it.  One person is this witch the other players are the
children, there must be a mother in here somewhere.  The mother
says "I'm foing downtown to smoke my pipe and I won't be back
to Saturday night" and leaves the room and the lights are
turned off.  Everyone else hides.  Then I forget what happens
and the lights are turned back on.  UHMMMM, not much help.

Oh my goodness! I had forgotten that game! I believe in my childhood, it
was called Mumbledey Peg or something like that. I never played because
I didn't have a knife, but the boys in my neighborhood did. You first
provide a target drawn on the ground -- a circle or something -- and
then you take turns flipping the knife. I believe they began by holding
the tip of the blade and flipping it in a circle to land point down
sticking up in the dirt. Then you lay it on the back of your hand and
flip it that way. I'm not sure of points and all of the moves, but I do
remember the game.


     I don't know about the 16th century game, but after I read this book, it
reminded me very much of a game I played with my brothers and sisters as a
child 50'2 and 60's). We learned it from friends in the Catskills. I have
never run across anyone who else who played this game.
     It is called "Ghost in the Cellar".  A mother has 7 children, each named
for a day in the week. She sends each child down to get something from the
cellar, a ghost scares the child who then runs back and jumps on the mother
(this was the best part of the game!) screaming, "Mommy, Mommy, there's a
ghost in the cellar!"  The mother always goes back and checks, finds nothing
and sends the child back.  The ghost then captures the child and turns her
into a pie!  The mother then goes through the whole routine with each child
until all are captured.  Mom then goes shopping for pies, guess where! She
buys the pie from the ghost and discovers her child! This is how the game ends
with a lot of chasing around.  It was great fun.


Kimberly L. Connell
OCM BOCES Itinerant Librarian
Cortland City School District
Dryden Central School District
Cortland and Dryden New York
KConnell@Cortland.cnyric.org

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