Francesco Bartolozzi, 1787, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts (GMII): Image in the public domain. Wikimedia

Next Monday is Family Day here in Alberta and in keeping with the spirit of that holiday, I thought I’d present a few of the games children played in England during the Regency period. Although the names are different, the games these youngsters played are similar to what I and my friends found to amuse ourselves.

Games like skipping rope and spinning tops were popular before the regency era and continued well into the twentieth century. I remember playing with tops as a young lad and even participated in the odd bout of jump rope,  as we called it, although not if my friends were close enough to see.

Other contests, although a bit strange by today’s standards, were popular at parties and other gatherings:

Jane Austen’s family played a game called “Bullet” at Christmas. Here are the rules, as explained by her niece, Fanny Austen, in a letter dated January 17, 1804.

“You must have a large pewter dish filled with flour which you must pile up into a sort of pudding with a peek at top. You must then lay a bullet at top and everybody cuts a slice of it, and the person that is cutting it when it falls must poke about with their noses and chins till they find it and then take it out with their mouths of which makes them strange figures all covered with flour but the worst is that you must not laugh for fear of the flour getting up your nose and mouth and choking you: You must not use your hands in taking the Bullet out.”

Thank you, but I’ll pass on that game. I doubt I’d find much enjoyment in covering my face with flour. And what does she mean by “chins”? Were double and triple chins common in the regency?

Snap-Dragon was another popular amusement. To play, you needed a pewter dish filled with some sort of alcohol, usually brandy. An assortment of raisins and nuts went into the dish, which was then lit on fire. The goal of the game was to retrieve a nut or raisin from the bowl without burning your fingers. Believe it or not, both children and adults played! How was it possible for anyone to win at this game? They used brandy because it burns at 80° F, so the contents of the bowl were close to room temperature. Still, allowing children to play a game that revolved around burning alcohol?

Charades was a popular game, although it bore no resemblance to what we play today, where a person acts out a word or phrase in silence. The English imported this version from France, and played it by reciting a poem that described the separate syllables of a word, which the players had to interpret to make the word. Each pair of lines describe syllables that you combine to answer part of the riddle. In Volume I, Chapter IX of Emma, Mr. Elton uses the lines (each line displayed below consists of the pair in the original novel):

My first displays the wealth and pomp of kings, Lord of the earth! their luxury and ease.

Another view of man, my second brings, Behold him there, the monarch of the seas!

But ah! what reverse we have! Man’s boasted power and freedom, all are flown;

Thy ready wit the world will soon supply, May its approval beam in that soft eye!

https://www.janeaustensummer.org/post/games-played-during-the-regency-era

It seems that, up until the advent (or scourge, depending on your point of view) of personal computers and video games, amusing oneself hadn’t changed much in the previous two or three hundred years. For the most part, those pastimes have fallen by the wayside, at least in most of the world. I assume these games are still popular in poorer nations, that is if the children have the time or inclination to play at all. I was tempted to claim curiosity over what the next hundred years will bring but, to be honest, I find those thoughts worrisome at best.