The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Toys and Games

Linda Garland Page, Hilton Smith, Linda Garland Page, Hilton Smith

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780807844250
• eBook ISBN: 9781469617008
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

Part oral history and part rule book, The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Toys and Games is a joyous collection of memories of playing indoor and outdoor games; of making dolls, homemade board games, playhouses, and other toys — each with complete instructions and the flavor of southern Appalachia. Every toy and game has been tested by the Foxfire students and is devised to make or play yourself, without major expense, complicated parts, or electricity.

Originally published in 1985, the book includes familiar games like marbles, hopscotch, and horseshoes, as well as more obscure entertainments such as stealing the pines, crows and cranes, and thimble. Here, too, are instructions for constructing playhouses, noisemakers, puzzles, and whimmy diddles. The book also provides information on special games traditionally played on Sundays and holidays.

For those who are tired of worn-out batteries and electronic toys and for anyone curious about the playtimes of an earlier generation, The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Toys and Games is a welcome and entertaining guide.

PART ONE

OUTSIDE
GAMES

Most of the homes was woodlands around, and we rambled in the woods a lot. Enjoyed nature, really. All of us mountain people did that, too. I look back over my childhood as a very happy life, and I don’t regret that I lived back then.—Ada Kelly

The elements of the outdoors—the woods, fields, cornshucks, ivy branches, playgrounds, June bugs, moss, and hiding places—dominate the memories of those we interviewed. There were plenty of indoor games, as you can see in Part Two, but when the weather permitted—and sometimes when it didn’t—the people we talked with preferred the outdoors.

Elizabeth Dubose: Yeah, we swung on tree limbs. We didn’t have any vines. That’s rough playin’. That’s why I said we played rough back then. You learned to be tough; you had to be tough to live. The games you played— you’d get skinned up in a minute—so you learned to accept the blood when it runs out. You just wiped it off with a leaf and went on.

We’d pull a small sapling down and get on that thing and the tree would be stronger than you. You’d get on it and that tree would go back up and then here you’d go up in there just a-flyin’. I don’t know why we didn’t ever get hurt [more].

We played with toad frogs—can you imagine! Y’all haven’t played with frogs, have you? You don’t see a frog now. We were mean to them. We’d catch ‘em and make ‘em hop. We would get a long stick and run it up behind the frog, you know, and honey, he would take off and be makin’ good hops! The fool thing thought it was a snake, I reckon.

Now, we’d tie a string to the legs of June bugs and buzz them in the air. We had lots of sparrows. They’d be in the backyard. Course we had dogs, and we’d throw scraps out to the dogs and the birds would come around and pick around in those scraps. Dad said if you’d put some salt on a sparrow’s tail, you could catch him. You know, I run that bird four or five hours before I ever figured that out.

GETTING STARTED

Most games require that the players divide into equal teams or decide who is It or decide who goes first. Rather than repeat those instructions every time, we put them together here, near the beginning. Readers can choose the most appropriate and interesting instructions for each game.

First, here are three nonsense rhymes used to decide who will be “It.” On each word in the first rhyme point to the next person, moving left to right. The person who “you” lands on is out. There are 14 words, so the 14th player is out. The rhyme is repeated until one person is left: It or Wolf or Fox.

Acker backer,	Acker backer,
sodie cracker;	sodie cracker;
acker backer,	out goes,
boo.	you.

—Ray Hicks and Billie Henry

In the following verse, on each line in the rhyme point to the next person, moving left to right. The player who “buck” lands on is out. There are seven lines, so the 7th player is out. In Buck, the remaining player is It.

One saw,

dominacker,

little toe,

Virgin Mary,

haddem skadem,

sickem sackin,

buck!

—Ray Hicks

In the following, on each line point to the next player in line, moving left to right.

William Trembletoe:

He’s a good fisherman.

He catches hens,

puts them in a pen.

Some lay eggs,

some none.

Wire,

briar,

limber lock;

three geese in a flock.

One flew East,

one flew West,

one flew over the cuckoo’s nest.

There I met my father.

He had rings,

many pretty things.

Be gone, you dirty dish dog.

O

U

T

Out!

Drawing straws is a quick way to decide who is It.

Daisy Justice: You usually have three straws, and you have one that was kind of long and one medium and one short one. When you held them up for a person to choose one of the three, you held them in your fingers or hands to be drawed. But you fixed them till they’d all look the same. And the one that got the short straw was the one that had to be It. You could use a regular broom now to do that, but back then we had what they called broomstraw.

Bill Henry remembered an even faster way for deciding who goes first:

Nowadays, when we want to choose something we’ll flip a coin. Back then the boys would get a flat rock and spit on one side of it, and they would say “Wet or dry?” instead of “Heads or tails.”

Usually associated with baseball, this one is useful for deciding in any game which team goes first.

Bill Henry: You had to have two guys. One would pitch the bat to the other [grip end up]. The other would catch it. Then up from where the other guy caught the bat, the two would start alternating grips on the bat. The man with the last grip on the handle of the bat has to pitch the bat [backward] over his head. If that guy had enough of the bat to hold on so he could pitch it over his head, he got to choose first or go first. Otherwise, if he couldn’t throw it over his head, the other guy got to choose first or something like that.

The discussion with Bill led to an interesting observation about choosing sides.

Bill Henry: You know, speaking of choosing, there have been kids probably who have come out with complexes because certain little kids were never chosen for some of these games. I can remember them kinda hanging back, feeling sorry for themselves because they were the last one chosen, if they were chosen at all. And when there wasn’t anybody left except them, why the person who had to take them would kind of growl.

ANTY OVER

More contacts remembered playing Anty Over than any other game. This is not surprising, since it can be played anywhere there is a low building and some yard on both sides. What is surprising was the general agreement on the rules of the game. A few variations are listed after the game.

How to Play. Anty Over is played in an open yard surrounding a low building. There are no boundaries except fences, roads, or woods. The only equipment is a large, soft ball, like a volleyball. It can be played by large or small groups.

Divide up into two equal sides. The object is to capture the players on the other side and avoid capture yourself.

The two teams gather on opposite sides of the building so they are out of sight of each other. The team with the ball, Team A, shouts “Anty Over!” and one member throws the ball over the building toward the other side. Skillful players try to bounce the ball off the roof to make it difficult to catch. If a member of Team B does catch the ball, the whole team rushes around the building—either side—toward Team A, throwing the ball at members of Team A. Anyone hit is captured and then belongs to Team B.

Meanwhile, Team A members try to get past Team B to B’s side of the building. Members of Team A who get to the other side of the building are safe—they cannot be captured.

If no one on Team B catches the ball, then they shout “Anty Over!” and one member throws the ball over the building toward Team A.

After Team B has its turn, whether anyone on that team catches the ball or not, then it is their turn to “Anty Over” and avoid capture. The two sides alternate until one side captures everyone on the other side or until the game is stopped by dinner time, darkness, or the school bell. The side with the most captures wins.

Obviously there is a lot of running, confusion, and trickery. Helen Nichols remembers tactics: “You see, you couldn’t tell whether the other side caught the ball or not, because you couldn’t see on the other side of the house. So everybody was peekin’ around the corner to see who was coming. But you still didn’t know who had the ball because everybody had their hand behind them—pretending to have the ball.”

Variations. Marinda Brown remembers that each side had to Anty Over until the other side missed the throw or did not capture anyone.

Helen Nichols remembers that the player who caught the ball held it and tagged players on the opposite team, rather than throwing it at them, and that the team with the ball could hand it off to one another while they were trying to capture players on the other side.

During our toys and games interview, Ray Hicks gave us a detailed description of Anty Over, then added this:

But what I was thinking about this morning, what amazes me, was we had no umpires or referees or nothin’. Yet I never heard of anyone cheatin’ or anything. If they didn’t catch a ball, they just didn’t catch it. Everybody trusted. It never crossed anyone’s mind of somebody cheatin’ and sayin’, “Yeah, I caught it,” when he didn’t.

BALL GAMES

Apparently every community, every neighborhood, played ball. Schools played ball; churches played ball—some did, anyway. Smaller groups played, too, since One-eyed Cat can be played with as few as three players.

Apparently every community played its own version of ball, sometimes using different names—Fieldball is a variant of Catball, sometimes under the same name—the most common being Townball. There are common elements: pitcher, catcher, batters, bases, and, of course, ball and bat. (We did find one variant, Bullpen, described by Ernest Rogers, that does not use a bat.)

Most were played with homemade balls and homemade bats. Games usually e...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction by Simon J. Bronner
• Part One: Outside Games
• Getting Started
• Anty Over
• Ball Games
• Base
• Buck
• Buckety-Buck
• Cracking the Whip
• Crows and Cranes
• Drop the Handkerchief
• Fox and Geese
• Fox and Hounds
• Kick the Can
• Red Rover
• Soup Pot
• Steal the Handkerchief
• Stealing the Pines
• Wolf
• Part Two: Inside Games
• Blindfold
• Bum, Bum, Bum
• Cat and Rat
• Clothes Pins
• Club Fist
• Farmer in the Dell
• Kitty Wants a Corner
• Lemon Relay
• Old Granny Wiggins Is Dead
• Old Granny Hum Bum
• Please and Displease
• Tap Hand
• Thimble
• Part Three: Games for Two or Three
• Fox and Geese
• Hopscotch
• Horseshoes
• Hull Gull
• Jumping Rope
• Knock the Stick
• Marbles
• Mumble Peg
• Part Four: Diversions and Entertainments
• Sundays
• Holidays
• Kitchen Games
• Vaulting and Swinging
• Pranks and Practical Jokes
• Imagining/Pretending
• Riddles and Tales
• Odds ’n’ Ends
• Part Five: Dolls and Playhouses
• Stick Dolls
• Rock Dolls
• Potato Head Dolls
• Cucumber Dolls
• Corncob Dolls
• Apple-head Dolls
• Cornshuck Dolls
• Cloth Dolls
• Rag Dolls
• Pretending
• Playhouses
• Dressing Up
• Part Six: Toys and Constructions
• Cornstalk Creations
• For Yards and Hills
• Puzzles
• Noisemakers
• Launchers
• Handheld Motionmakers
• Spinning Tops and Tobacco Tags
• Participants
• Index