The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland

Gomme, Alice Bertha, 1853-1938Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.0
Word count
773K words
Chapters
78

Tags

English Originals CultureSports Social ObservationHistorical CriticismFun EncyclopediaTraditional GamesEclectic ReadingCultural HeritageFolk CustomsFolk GamesFestival CustomsParent-Child Reading

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland (Vol 1 of 2) by GommeAuthor: Gomme, Alice Bertha, 1853-1938,Language: English, Class: GR: Geography, Anthropology, Recreation: Folklore, Release Date: Dec 29, 2012

Editor's review

This is the first volume of folklorist Alice Bertha Gomme's records of traditional games of England, Scotland, and Ireland, a foundational document in folklore and game history. Its value lies not in highly readable narrative but in the systematic collection, classification, and recording of a large number of folk games' rhymes, rules, actions, and regional variants, providing primary material for studying children's culture, folk transmission, and the history of everyday recreation. The dialects, rhythms, and game scenes preserved in the book also allow readers to glimpse pre-industrial ways of life. It should be treated as a reference book rather than popular reading, suitable for consulting by theme or region with notes and index. For readers concerned with folklore, educational history, childhood studies, or cultural anthropology, this is a reference book to keep at hand for long-term consultation; general readers looking only for light stories may find the format scattered and the information dense.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read the introduction and classified contents first to understand the book's format and scope.
  2. Read selectively by game type or region; there is no need to proceed page by page.
  3. Note dialect words and differences in rules as you read for cross-comparison.
  4. Read alongside folklore ethnographies in the same field, noting differences in edition and region.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
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  11. 11
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  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
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  34. 34
  35. 35
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  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
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  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
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  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
  78. 78

FAQ

Is this book suitable for reading from cover to cover? Not very. It is closer to a source compilation, with relatively independent entries, high information density, and weak narrative. A more effective approach is to look at the contents and introduction first to understand the classification framework, then read selected entries by interest or research topic, using it as a reference book for repeated consultation.
Do the games in the book have unified rules? Traditional games often have multiple variants in different regions, and the book focuses on recording these differences rather than giving a single standard. Readers will see that the same game has different names, rhymes, and play methods in different places; this is precisely the value of folkloric recording, and differences should be treated as material rather than errors.
Can readers with average English read it? The book is in original English and contains dialect vocabulary and old-fashioned expressions, so readers with average English will encounter some obstacles. It is advisable to use a dictionary or a parallel translation, first grasping game categories and basic rules, then examining specific wording, without insisting on understanding every word.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Gomme, Alice Bertha, 1853-1938 Author · British · 1853–1938

Alice Bertha Gomme (1853–1938) was a British folklorist known for collecting and studying children's games and folk traditions. Her representative work, The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland, systematically gathered and recorded children's games and related customs from across the British Isles, and remains a frequently cited early compilation in folklore and game studies. Two of her works are held in this collection. Public information about her life is limited, and existing accounts focus mainly on her writings; her works show attention to field recording and classification, and an effort to preserve oral traditions in their original form. This work provided later folklorists with a usable textual foundation and helped keep many fading game forms from being lost.