GAMES (WITHOUT SONGS)

Abstract

The introduction to this section looks back to Norman Douglas’s comments on the range of children’s games in the early years of the twentieth century, and notes that the present collection includes some 160 games, apart from ball games, indoor games, singing games, and versions of adult games such as football, whereas Douglas claimed to have identified well over 700 games, although many of these he mentioned only briefly and others are apparently duplicate forms of the same game. Nigel Kelsey sets out the games in sixteen categories, such as chasing games, racing games, seeking games, and contests and tussles, which are commented on in the introduction before examples of each category are presented, accompanied by the established annotation, which is replicated in subsequent sections.