Hopscotch – What Makes a Game “Ancient?”
In 1975, Frederic Grunfeld was the primary editor for a book titled Games of the World (I actually own a copy). I’m not sure which of their sources told them this, or if Frederic actually wrote it himself, but in the entry for Hopscotch, the text claims:
“One of the oldest known hopscotch diagrams is inscribed into the floor of the Forum in Rome. During expansion of the Roman empire, the legions built cobblestone roads connecting the northern countries of Europe with the Mediterranean and Asia Minor. The paved surfaces were ideal for the game, taught by soldiers to the children of France, Germany, and Britain. Hopscotch has remained popular with children ever since.”
While that’s a cool story, there’s no evidence it was true.
The Challenge in Dating Games
Ulrich Schädler, a professor who studies gaming history and archaeology, shows particular frustration with the spread of misinformation when folklore is taken as fact. As he wrote in Volume 15 of the Board Game Studies Journal:
However, numerous Internet sites (it would not make sense to cite one, it suffices to do a search with the keywords “hopscotch” and “Roman”) pretend to know that the game was already played by Roman legionaries. And more precisely they add that it was an exercise of Roman soldiers they “played” on the road from London to Glasgow on a playing field of 100 ft length. Most of these texts are identical, they have simply been copy-and-pasted and never give an ancient source for this statement.
And that’s the key phrase: “ancient source for this statement.” One of humanity’s evolutionary gifts is pattern-recognition. It was a key to survival to be able to see things like faces that might have markings to camouflage them. But this means we can sometimes see something that looks like something else we recognize (for example, a game board), and ascribe meaning to it.
So gaming historians also look for other evidence, such as texts from around the same period that either mention the game in passing, or even better, describe the rules. Paintings depicting the game are another strong indicator of when something originated. When one can find multiple types of evidence from the same period, then a game’s age becomes more certain.
Since so many games are passed down by word of mouth until someone decides to write them down, it’s often extremely unclear when a game first appeared. As a writer, I do my best to try and find multiple sources, especially from scholarly writings. But I’ll sometimes get it wrong. This is why I start every book with “The first thing to know about me is that I am not a historian or anthropologist. Games are my passion.” The history interests me, of course, but sometimes folklore will make it into my writings as well.
Other Guesses on “Ancient” Hopscotch
As Ulrich goes on, he mentions a couple of other “ancient” origins of Hopscotch that he then refutes. Interestingly, his issue here is more that the rules only contain an aspect of hopscotch, not the game as we’d recognize it now, so there isn’t a clear connection.
- 500 BCE: Buddah’s writings about games he would not play mention one that involves “walking over squares drawn on the ground, and stepping only where it is allowed.” No hopping, no throwing a stone, so not hopscotch.
- 2nd Century CE: Julius Pollux in his Omnimasticon, describes a game called Askoliasmos, which involves hopping on one foot for as long as possible or as far as possible. No board, no stone, no pattern.
Es Wird Wärmer (“Getting Warmer”)
In 1560, François Rabelais published Gargantua, a novel about a giant, in which appears a list of more than 200 games, but nothing like hopscotch was mentioned.
Johann Fischart later “translated” Gargantua into German, adding much of his own ideas, which ballooned the text to something like three times its original length, apparently. This is Geschichtklitterung, and it mentions a game called “Inn die Höll” (“Into Hell”).
When he published a second edition in 1582, the game’s name changed to “In Himmel, in d’Höll” (“Into Heaven, into Hell”), which is almost identical to “Himmel und Hölle.” This is the name used by modern German children for their version of Hopscotch. Still, this is only a name in a list of games, without rules, details, or a drawing of the game. Still, we’re getting closer.
The First Definite Appearance
In 1668 England, a play by Thomas Shadwell, titled Sullen Lovers, a character named Sir Positive has a line bringing us much closer to a definite appearance of the game:
“If I don’t fence, dance, ride, sing, fight a duel, […] play at cat, stool-ball, scotch-hop, and trap-ball, […] I am the greatest […] blockhead, buffoon, jack-pudding, tony, or what you will.”
I added the ellipses in the same places as Ulrich Schädler – it’s otherwise quite a long list as a line. However, this is about the same time that children playing hopscotch start to appear in Dutch paintings. Most importantly, Francis Willughby wrote a manuscript meant to become a book of 17th century games sometime between 1662 and 1672. Unfortunately, the manuscript was never published by the time of his death, but it included a chapter titled Scotch Hopper, which finally included the rules and a diagram of the playing field.
Fun fact: the term “scotch” in this case uses an older definition of a mark or shallow incision in the ground. So you were literally hopping over the scotches that marked the playing field.
So How Do You Play?
First, we’ll go over the common American rules, before we look at variations in historical play, or how the game is different around the world.
Draw a numbered playing field similar to the options here. On your turn, stand a few feet away from the bottom of square one, and toss a marker (stick, stone, beanbag, etc) into the numbered square for this turn (first one, then two, and so on). If you miss the correct square or if the marker touches the line, you lose your turn and have to try again for the same number.
Success means you get to hop through the squares in sequence, skipping the one containing your marker. Certain squares (highlighted, usually as a pair) allow you to put both feet down, one in each, unless one has the marker in it. When you reach the end, turn around and hop back, pausing before the marked square to pick up your marker, then hopping into that square and through until you are out. If at any time you lose your balance, land outside the lines, or both feet touch the ground except where its allowed, you lose your turn and have to try for the same number next time.
The first player to succeed for all the squares wins.
An Older American Version
In 1896, Daniel Beard (one of the founders of the Boy Scouts of America) published The American Boy’s Book of Sport, which included a description of hopscotch that required a bit more athleticism. Some of the courts may have looked simpler, and the requirement to throw to each space in order is similar to today’s game. However, the return trip was a bit trickier:
“Hopping on one foot over the line into number one and still keeping his foot raised, he makes a hop-kick with the other and sends the potsherd out of the court. Whenever he fails to do so the next player takes a turn.”
As you can see, this version of the game does not require you to skip the square with your marker, hop to the end, come back, pick it up, and hop out. Instead, you hop into the square with your marker, and kick it back using your hopping foot. In later spaces, you do this repeatedly, knocking the marker back through each number in sequence. Where you’re allowed to have both feet on the ground, you must do this as a “sliding kick,” without lifting either foot.
In some variants he mentions, it’s even more difficult. In those cases, you must reach down to pick up the marker, place it on top of your standing foot, then hop while kicking to either throw it out of the court, or even catch it! If the requirement is to catch the marker, you must then place it back down on the ground, then hop-kick it out of the playing field.
Hopscotch Around the World
Many cultures have a similar game. Perhaps they are direct descendants of Hopscotch, although some may have evolved independently. It’s not practical to list them all here, but I want to highlight a few that caught my eye, either for an interesting court design, or unique rules.
Himmel und Hölle (Heaven and Hell) – Germany
In Himmel und Hölle, all throws to begin a turn are made from “Earth.” These are done in numerical order, as before, and if anything lands in “Hell” at any time, that player must start all over again from 1. While there are many court designs, I’m showing the one from Games of the World. You’ll notice a few special spaces:
- Hell: As mentioned, if you or your marker ever touch this space, you must start over from the beginning.
- Heaven: After successfully completing the course through space 9, your next target is Heaven. Once reaching it, all of your turns will consist of moving your marker from Earth to Heaven and back in increasingly elaborate ways.
- Post: If your throw into Heaven lands in the space marked “Post,” you must remain silent for the rest of the game. Naturally, this means everyone will try to make you speak or laugh so you lose your turn.
- Ü: Short for überspringen (“to skip over”), landing your marker here allows you to choose one of the challenges from the Heaven to Earth sequence to ignore.
Once you have successfully reached Heaven, you stop having to throw your marker from Earth. Instead, you must hop to Heaven and back to Earth with your marker using methods that gradually become more challenging. If you entered Heaven by throwing your marker into one of the überspringen spaces, you may choose one of these to skip.
- Kick the marker with your foot into each following space in sequence, all the way to Heaven and back in a single turn. Missing a space means you end your turn and must try again.
- Balance the marker on one foot while you hop through the all the spaces. if it falls, your turn ends.
- Balance it on your head.
- Balance it on your index finger.
- Balance it on your forearm.
- Balance the marker on your right knee.
- Now your left knee.
- Good news – no marker! Instead, you must hop through the sequence with your eyes closed. Players call “hot” if you land correctly, “cold” if you miss.
If you get through all of that, you’ve completed the game. Now you may claim one of the squares for yourself. With your back turned, toss the marker over your shoulder (you get 3 chances to succeed). Whatever space it lands on, draw in it to mark it for yourself.
From here on, all players must skip that space, while in all future games, you may land there with both feet to rest.
Tokkudu Billa – India
One description I found for Tokkudu Billa was played on this simple 2×4 grid, but had a series of challenges nearly identical to Himmel und Hölle. I was intrigued that the game is played barefoot, and one of the challenged involved picking up the marker with your toes and carrying it through the course.
However, the Wikipedia description was a bit different, so those are the rules I’ll cover here. In this version, you must stand anywhere outside the court and toss the marker into the target square (first 8, then backward to 1, skipping spaces 4 and 5). Then you hop up to the space before the marker, pick it up, and toss it a short distance outside the course. Hop through the remainder of the court, skipping the square the marker had been in, and hop from the final square to land on top of your marker (hence why you don’t want to throw it too far).
After succeeding for all target squares, hop through the course balancing the marker, first in your palm, then the back of your hand. Once you have done both, your opponents choose kaya (“raw fruit”) or pandu (“ripe fruit”) for you. Then, you must turn your back to the court and from either a sitting (kaya) or standing (pandu) position, toss the marker over your shoulder. Now hop up to where it landed, pick it up, and draw a cross to claim that square while still balanced on one foot.
From here, you’ll start the sequence from the beginning, but you may rest both feet in your claimed square in addition to the highlighted 4 and 5, while opponents must avoid it. Once all squares are claimed, whoever owns the most spaces wins the game.
A player loses their turn if the marker lands on a line or in a crossed square (4, 5, or one claimed by someone else). Other failures include hopping into the square containing the coin, or one claimed by another player.
More Space-Claiming Designs
We’ve seen this concept of claiming spaces a couple of times now. Interestingly, it’s a common rule in many versions around the world. For all of them, you must complete the course normally, plus a couple of additional balance or memory challenges, before turning your back and tossing your marker to take control of a space. Rather than detail all of them, here are a few of the more fun court designs which incorporate this idea of area control.
Klasy/Pajak/Chłopek – Poland
These names seem to reference different versions of the court, or perhaps which rule variants are used. Pajak and Chłopek use a human-shaped course and might require you to land with your legs crossed, for example.
Klasy is played on a rectangular court similar to Tokkudu Billa. As you hop through the course, you’re required to name something within a certain class (colors, flowers, quadrupeds, etc) when you enter each square. Repeating a term already used means you lose your turn. Some accounts claim this game isn’t played with a marker, while others show progressing by tossing your marker into each successive space as normal.
Much More to See
As you’ve seen, hopscotch can be far more challenging than you might remember from your childhood. The game can require a great deal of skill, physical stamina, or even a good memory to complete. There are so many variant rules and ways to draw the board from all across the globe, and I’ll come back to them in a future article. Hopefully you’ve gained a few ideas to try, as well as learning to be careful of anything you read, since sometimes people just repeat a “fact” they read somewhere else without looking too deeply into it. Happy hopping!
