Children’s Folklore Recent Titles in Greenwood Folklore Handbooks Myth: a handbook

Aeroplane Hoppy
The taw, a piece of wood, is thrown by the first player into number one base. If it does 
not go on the line you have a blind man’s throw. Then you hop into number two and in 
and out of the squares until you reach number eight. Then turn around and hop back 
to number two, pick up your taw, hop over number one and out. Then throw your taw 
into number two, hop into number three and in and out of the squares until you reach 
number eight; then back to number three, pick up your taw and hop out.
Next throw your taw into number three, etc., and keep going until you get to number 
eight. Then you can choose a base and put your name on it (or your initials). Your base is 
your rest place and no other player is allowed to put a foot in into it. One girl fi nally wins. 
Girls from eight to 12 years old play this the year around in the schoolyard.
Dorothy Howard, pioneering collector of Australian children’s folklore, col-
lected this description of Hoppy (also known as Hopscotch) from 13-year-old 
Gwennyth in Swansea in January 1955. Howard suggests that this pattern, which 
includes two horizontal rows of two squares each, “resembles the two-winged 
airplane of World War I and probably acquired the name because of the similar-
ity as seen by both Australian and American children” (Darian-Smith and Factor 
68– 69). Her inclusion of four different versions of Aeroplane Hoppy, as well as 
many other patterns for the game, demonstrates the richness and diversity of 
children’s folklore. Many other variants of this game can be found in Gomme 
(1: 223–27), Newell (188–89), and Bronner (189–98).

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Examples and Texts 73
Running and Chasing Games
Children, Children
All the “children” line up before “mama.” At the end, all run and “mama” tries to catch 
and beat them.
Children! Children!
Yes, mama.
Where have you been to?
Grandmama.
What have she given you?
Bread and cheese.
Where’s my share?
Up in the air.
How shall I reach it?
Climb on a broken chair.
Suppose I fall?
I don’t care.
Who learn you such manners?
Dog.
Who is the dog?
You, mama.
Martha Warren Beckwith collected this chasing game in Jamaica between 1919 
and 1924; it appears in her 1928 study 
Jamaica Folk-Lore
(19). Beckwith notes 
that like many other games that were popular in Jamaica during that era, this one 
relies on traditional dialogue from England and Scotland (Gomme 1: 396 –98; 
Newell 143– 45). By 1928, many Jamaican young people preferred sports and 
dance steps to some of the older dialogue-based games, but such games were still