Scottish kids games

[Laird_M]

I'm running a session for St Andrew's Tide for our Cubs and wondered if anyone had any traditional games I coudl get the kids to do as talkign religion for 1 3/4 hrs woudl bore the kids stupid.

I've already got plainy clappy, towns, bools amd Queenie.

[piperdbh]

Bash the rat!

[Laird_M]

Bash the rat!

My two won't be too happy if we did that - we have two Norwegian Hooded does that the boys love.

[Peter Crowe]

Martin,
I can't think of any games that are specifically Scottish except the game of 'Ba' (ball) played in places as far apart as Kirkwall and Jedburgh where adolescent males and young men play a game of getting a ball from one side of town to the other, divided into two sides of variable size called the 'Uppies' (from one side of town) and 'Doonies' (the other side of town). This game has few rules that I am aware of, and I am under the impression that (moderate?) violence and sneakiness may be used to accomplish the goal (or thwart it's accomplishment). Probably not a game to endear you to the parents of your Cub Scouts....we had a variant of this when I was a Scout (aged 11-16) called Murder Ball.

In the Glasgow area during my childhood the game of Hopscotch was called Peever, and had a variant called Beds.

[Peter Crowe]

post deleted.

[ThistleDown]

Martin, see if you can find a copy of "The Games & Diversions of Argyleshire" by Robert Craig Maclagan, M.D. Published by David Nutt, London 1901, it's a super little book crammed with children's day-fillers of the Victorian era.

Rex

[Bugbear]

Martin, see if you can find a copy of "The Games & Diversions of Argyleshire" by Robert Craig Maclagan, M.D. Published by David Nutt, London 1901, it's a super little book crammed with children's day-fillers of the Victorian era.

Rex

There is a PDF version from Electric Scotland that comes up on a Google search.

However, here is a link to a down loade page for the scanned book over at Internet Archive:

http://www.archive.org/details/gamesdiversionso00macl

Hope that helps.

[ThistleDown]

Ah yes, Ted. Pretty soon my wonderful library of touchable bindings will go the way of many of the games in this lovely book. Does make the word more readily accessible, of course, it's just the tactile part that will eventually be missed.

[Bugbear]

Ah yes, Ted. Pretty soon my wonderful library of touchable bindings will go the way of many of the games in this lovely book. Does make the word more readily accessible, of course, it's just the tactile part that will eventually be missed.

I'm sorry, ThistleDown. For me, there is little choice; however, I think hard copy books will be around long passed either of us. And aren't these games preserved in this book, what ever form, for people of the future, long passed either of us, to have or rediscover?

[ThistleDown]

As I said, Ted, it makes the words more accessible. Oh, and it may interest you (and the OP) to know that many of the games played a hundred years ago in Highland villages in Argyll are still played today The difference is that they are played only in more remote places and at younger ages than in the past.