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Upper Wharton School students
playing “London
Bridge is Falling Down,” southeast of Huntsville, circa 1943. |
Many games that children play today have old roots. “London Bridge” has been around since the Middle Ages while “Blind Man’s Bluff” (a corruption of “buff,” a small push) dates back to Tudor times in the 14th and 15th centuries. Hopscotch began in Britain centuries ago as a training exercise for Roman soldiers. The stories behind some games have been embroidered
through the years. “Ring
Around the Rosie” is an old rhyme that took on new meaning in
the 1960s, when a researcher decided that its verses referred to the
Bubonic Plague of the mid 1300s. Trouble is, there isn’t any
evidence of the rhyme existing before the 1880s. |
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