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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	HUCKIE-BUCKIE, &c—HUCKLE-BONES
	Huckie-buckie down the Brae Children in Lothian have a sport in which they slide down a hill, sitting on their hunkers (Jamieson). The well-known custom at Greenwich is probably the same game, and there are examples at Tumbling Hill, a few miles from Exeter, at May Pole Hill, near Gloucester, and other places. Huckle-bones Holloway (Diet, of Provincialisms) says that the game is called " Huckle-bones " in East Sussex and " Dibs " in West Sussex. Parish (Diet, of Sussex Dialect) mentions that huckle-bones, the small bone found in the joint of the knee of a sheep, are used by children for playing the game of " Dibs;M also Peacock's Manley and Corringham Glossary. Barnes (Dorset Glossary) says, "A game of toss and catch, played mostly by two with five dibs or huckle-bones of a leg of mutton, or round pieces of tile or slate." Halliwell's description is clearly wrong. He says it was a game formerly played by throwing up the hip-bone of some animal, on one side of which was a head of Venus and on the other that of a dog. He who turned up the former was the winner (Dictionary). Miss J. Barker writes that u Huckle-bones " is played in Hexham; and Professor Attwell (Barnes) played the game as a boy, and is still a pro­ficient in it; he played it recently for my benefit with his set of real huckle-bones (A. B. Gomme); and see Notes and Queries^ 9th ser., iv. 378, 379. The figures or sets are practically the same as those de­scribed under " Fivestones." The game is very ancient. In the Sanctuarie of Salvation, &c, translated from the Latin of Levinus Lemnius by Henry Kinder (8vo, London, printed by H. Singleton), p. 144, we read, " These bones are called 'huckle-bones' or 'coytes.'" For further information relating to this game, as played by the ancients, the reader may consult Joannis Meursii Ludibunda) sive de Ludis Gr<zcoi'umf Liber singularis (8vo, Lugd. Bat. 1625), p. 7, and Dan. Souterii Palamedes, p. 81; but more particularly, / Tali ed altri Strumenti lusori degli anticJd Romani, discritti da Fran­cesco de 'Ficoroni, 4to, Rom. 1734. Against the suggestion that the modern game is derived directly from the Romans,
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