The Traditional Children's Games of England Scotland
& Ireland In Dictionary Form - Volume 1

With Tunes(sheet music), Singing-rhymes(lyrics), Methods Of Playing with diagrams and illustrations.

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	HAP THE BEDS—HARD BUTTONS
	which is the justice, which is the thief?" (King Lear, iv. 6). Malone says, "' Handy dandy' is, I believe, a play among children, in which something is shaken between two hands, and then a guess is made in which hand it is retained." See Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598: " Bazzicchiare, to shake between the hands; to play 'Handy dandy.'" Pope, in his Memoirs of Cornelius ScribLrus, in forbidding certain sports to his son Martin till he is better informed of their antiquity, says: " Neither cross and pile, nor ducks and drakes, are quite so ancient as * Handy dandy,' though Macrobius and St. Augus­tine take notice of the first, and Minutius Foelix describes the latter; but 'Handy dandy' is mentioned by Aristotle, Plato, and Aristophanes." Browne, in Britannia1 s Pastorals (i. 5), also alludes to the game. See "Neiveie-nick-nack." Hap the Beds A singular game, gone through by hopping on one foot, and with that foot slidirtg a little flat stone out of an oblong bed, rudely drawn on a smooth piece of ground. This bed is divided into eight parts, the two of which at the farther end of it are called the Kail-pots. If the player then stands at one end, and pitches the smooth stone into all the divisions one after the other, following the same on a foot (at every throw), and bringing it out of the figure, this player wins not only the game, but is considered a first-rate daub at it; failing, how­ever, to go through all the parts so, without missing either a throw or a hop, yet keeping before the other gamblers (for many play at one bed), still wins the curious rustic game.— Mactaggart's Gallovidian Encyclopaedia. A game called " The Beds," mentioned by a writer in Black­wood's Magazine, August 1821, p. 36, as played in Edinburgh when he was a boy by girls only, is described as a game where a pitcher is kicked into chalked divisions of the pave­ment, the performer being on one leg and hopping. See " Hop-scotch." Hard Buttons Several boys place one button each close together on a line.