Mumbly Peg Game Research...

N.E.Tim said:
I remember playing this and remember the occasional submerged rock and a dull dirty knife.
It's a wonder we didn't get a knife in the well worn canvas sneaker.
Click to expand...
I once put a pitchfork through my bare foot. Never used one bare footed again.
 
I agree, with Jack Black, growing up we played splits on the school field and I can't remember anyone being horribly maimed or disfigured by it, or even cut.
It was a very popular game and just about everybody had a knife to play it with be it a penknife or sheath knife.
EDIT................A couple of posts between me starting to reply and replying made the context out of synch.
 
Last edited:
Thanks guys. Most of the text I brought forward from a 2007 post I made in the Schrade Collectors' subforum. With nostalgia being common here, I thought it might strike a familiar chord with some. It was certainly a different day and time. I was amazed to see how well this slice of Americana was documented in art and culture. Were such pocketknife games common in other countries?
 
Stretch is what I remember mainly but also Chicken, Splits and Mumbley Peg. Case Stockman was my knife back then. Everyonce in a while someone would have to remove a knife from the toe of their Keds. Don't ever remember anyone getting hurt by those dangerous knives. How things have changed.
 
I remember "The Days" :thumbup: We played "Stretch", Mumbley Peg and Chicken on the playground our principle :eek: would even come out and join in or Referee!! :D WOW Those SCARY Knives :mad: Those were the DAYS!! Thanks Codger for the trip down Memory lane! :thumbup:
 
A nice trip down memory lane! Thanks! I remember playing splits quite a bit and some variation of mumbly peg. We played in the school yard too. This was south eastern Ohio and Western PA in the early 1960s.
 
We played mumbly peg in Boy Scouts and at school during recess (back when carrying a knife to school was considered routine and normal) when I was growing up in southeast Tennessee.

Those illustrations remind me of the ones in my Boy Scout Handbook from the sixties. Wish I still had it.
 
Simply one of the most enjoyable threads I've ever read on bladeforums!!! Thank you for that Michael:thumbup:

Brought back very fond memories of playing Mumbly Peg on the school grounds of Jefferson Elementary using an old Schrade Walden jack knife:) circa 1969.

Paul
 
Halfneck said:
Played mumbly-peg a little as a kid here in Georgia. My recollection of the rules is somewhat vague. I also remember playing a game where you and the other participant stood facing each other with feet spread shoulder-width apart. You would throw the knife in-between their feet and if it stuck they had to slide their right foot in towards the knife. Usually the game ended when someone declined to let you throw

We played this in Lancashire in England and called it "split the kipper" ,the rules were a bit vague or maybe have become so over the years !
Click to expand...
 
I had never heard of such a game until I joined Bladeforums, and never knew until today that it had rules and was accepted and marketed by knife companies!! In my family, had I been caught throwing a knife, let alone throwing it near somebody, the game would have been called "Tan my backside until it bled!" There was no throwing of knives (dangerous and damaging), and no playing with toy guns either. Both were to be used as intended- if you want to use a knife there were many chores that required cutting, and if you are going to shoot something you are going to go through the work of cleaning/butchering it afterwards! I'm still kind of amazed at how wide spread this game was! Thanks for the full write up!
 
We played Mumbly Peg but had fewer "variations" we also played Stretch but I cannot recall what we called it on LI in the 70s. No issue with knives at school!
I spent several years living in England and another "school yard" game that involved a knife was Conkers. I would use the awl on my SAK to bore the hole through the Horse Chestnut for the string.

Jack Black,
Do kids still play Conkers these days?

Great post Codger!
Thanks
 
Again, glad you enjoyed it guys. I don't think the BSA, Camillus and other published rules were very strictly adheared to back in the day. Often, as I remember it, It was just a "Watch me do this and then you try it" game that got progressively harder as it went along. Sometimes, not always, it involved gambling. Marbles or maybe the nickle Mom gave you for milk. Among better friends it was "I win, I pick something from your lunch sack". Never for the other guy's knife.

Stretch and chicken we played, but as others mentioned, I never recalled anyone injured. And they all involved gently soft short tosses into soft dirt. We had no rocks there next to the Missisippi River, only sand and gumbo. We didn't throw our knives at trees either. So I don't recall breaking one.

Of course by Junior High and High School we condisered ourselves too mature for such games. But we did still carry pocketknives in school, in church... everywhere we went.

I scraped many a honey bee stinger from a friend's hand. Teachers would even have us to do it for them. That was from the catch-a-bee game. You catch a honeybee in your bare hand then slowly open it until you can grasp it by it's wings, then have it sting your wet shirt tail, pulling the stinger out. That gave you a toy to play with the rest of the recess. Of course at the time we did not realize that it killed the bee.

I'm not surprised to learn that kids' knife games were played in UK. Elsewhere? Still don't know.
 
Codger,
Great read and I never knew the game had so many steps.
I remember hearing about the game and wanting to play it when a small lad in the sixties.
Already knives were being frowned on and I learned the one move from my father where you where hold it in your palm, blade towards finger and toss the knife up to rotate towards you and land in the dirt blade in.

None of the other kids i knew wanted to play or even had knives in the area of S. Cal I grew up in.
 
Rhinoknives1 said:
Codger,
Great read and I never knew the game had so many steps.
I remember hearing about the game and wanting to play it when a small lad in the sixties.
Already knives were being frowned on and I learned the one move from my father where you where hold it in your palm, blade towards finger and toss the knife up to rotate towards you and land in the dirt blade in.

None of the other kids i knew wanted to play or even had knives in the area of S. Cal I grew up in.
Click to expand...

Yes, the aforementioned linguistics survey suggested that it may have been somewhat regional. And I grew up on a farm in a rural community, most other kids being farmers' children as well. Shock and surprise, I had a single shot .22 for my 7th and a shotgun for my eighth birthday. Likely you didn't. Cap pistols? I have a picture of me on my third or fourth birthday with a genuine Roy Rogers double hip rig!
 
billym said:
Jack Black,
Do kids still play Conkers these days?
Click to expand...

When I was a kid, we travelled miles to get horse chestnuts to play conkers. Today, the street where I live has numerous horse chestnut trees lining it, but the only people I ever see picking up the conkers are adults, who just can't bear to see the 'treasure' get trodden on or run over by cars! My neighbour is Polish, and when his boy was little and they had just moved here, I once gave him a few conkers. He looked at me like I was daft! :D

Hopefully, there are still a few places where kids still play conkers and marbles, 'splits' or mumblety-peg, but I don't see much evidence of it here I'm afraid.
 
Jack Black said:
When I was a kid, we travelled miles to get horse chestnuts to play conkers. Today, the street where I live has numerous horse chestnut trees lining it, but the only people I ever see picking up the conkers are adults, who just can't bear to see the 'treasure' get trodden on or run over by cars! My neighbour is Polish, and when his boy was little and they had just moved here, I once gave him a few conkers. He looked at me like I was daft! :D

Hopefully, there are still a few places where kids still play conkers and marbles, 'splits' or mumblety-peg, but I don't see much evidence of it here I'm afraid.
Click to expand...

Yes I suppose kids in both the UK and US rarely carry knives or even play outdoors in some cases.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top