Talk:Mumblety peg

I've heard of a version in which every time you thow down the knife, you have to move your foot to where the knife lands, until eventually one person can't move his legs any farther. Anyone else here of this?--CallmeNiel 03:07, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that's like the version I know of, except you throw at your opponent's feet and they only move their foot if the knife/stick is one length away. As someone moves their legs farther apart it's harder to throw the knife/stick and eventually they fall down (unless they can do the splits, which kind of throws off the game). It's not a game of dare anymore as you don't want to aim close to your feet. The scouts called it Mumbely Peg. 64.238.49.65 20:23, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

This is not at all what I knew as "Mumbledy-Peg". Mumbledy-Peg was a game of skill which could be played by any number of people who competed to be the first to successfully complete all the prescribed throws. There was a specific order of specific throws, the first being to lay the knife in the open palm, blade pointing away from the player, and flip it in such a way that it landed stuck into the ground. The way we played (in the late '50's upstate NY) one had to be able to insert two fingers under the handle end of the knife for it to be considered valid. The second prescribed throw was the same as the first, except the knife was placed on the open back of the hand rather than the palm.

Altogether, I believe there were over 20 prescribed throws. Some of them had names like "Spank the Baby", Split the Goose", "Piggy Over the Fence", "Around the World" and "Tony Chestnut" (this last was actually a series of four different throws, each from a different part of the anatomy, namely toe, knee, chest and head). A player was allowed to progress to the next move only if he (or, rarely, she) had been successful with the previous move. Being unsuccessful with a move, a player had two options: to pass the knife to the next player and pick up the game next round with the missed throw, or to "chance it", in which case the player would get a second try. If the second try were successful, the player would move on to the next throw. If the chanced throw were unsuccessful, the player would have to begin with the first throw on the next round.

Everyone I have ever spoken with, from various parts of the country, has described "Mumbledy-Peg" in a way similar to my description, whereas the game described in this article, I believe, sounds more like the game of "Chicken", which I personally never played. In our rounds of Mumbledy-Peg, we considered a "Boy Scout" knife the proper instrument with the leather punch serving as the blade.
 * That's the version with which I am familiar. I never heard of the version described here until I read it here. I recall that there were descriptions of the different throws in a book called How To Do Nothing With Nobody All Alone By Yourself. I do not have a copy of the book (it likely came out about 50 years ago), but I believe it said the game got its name from pulling a peg out of the ground with one's teeth. Jim (talk) 05:21, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Any other knife games?
There's a wide variety of children's knife games in Russia, but the page has no interwiki. These games include much more harmless variants, like drawing "cities" in the sandy ground and then "capturing" the opponent's cities by "tanks, artillery" and other figures also "placed" on the "battlefield" by a knife thrown into the ground in an elaborate way. Very interesting sort of game, I played it a lot as a young boy. I wonder if other countries, US and Britain included, have similar games, besides the dangerous Mumblety peg. If so, let me know (if the answer is given many days since I posted, leave a message at my talkpage). --CopperKettle (talk) 15:28, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Mumblety Peg
MUMBLETYPEG The game of “Mumbletypeg” as I played it in a place called “Riverside”, just down-river from Cincinnati, Ohio, in the 1930’s, was very popular. I believe only playing marbles “for keeps” was more popular. I read on Wikipedia, an encyclopedia on the net, that Mark Twain mentions “Mumbletypeg” in his second book on Tom Sawyer, “Tom Sawyer, Detective.” I read the book and we had it in our home library while I grew up, but I do not remember the reference.

The Game The game gets its name from a peg that was two or three inches long and about 1/4 inch square. Before the game began it would be driven into the ground, usually a fairly dusty place off to one side, with only about 1/2 inch sticking out. The loser was expected to pull the peg of the ground with his teeth.

I will say right off that we did not usually play with the peg. By agreement, the peg could just be omitted and we would play just for the fun of it. Once in a while, though, with a stranger or a belligerent person, the peg would be used.

The usual number of players was only two. However, we often played with three. More than three would result in a fairly long wait to play, so it was unusual. More than likely with four, two different games of two each would be played.

Each kid had a pocketknife, almost always having two blades, one larger than the other. The big blade was about three inches long at most. If you played with a knife with more blades, larger, or any such deviation, everyone had to agree that the knife was acceptable.

The place had to be agreed upon. A spot was chosen for the right amount of moisture in the dirt so that the knife would stick fairly easily, and not fall over easily.

A series of about a dozen events in which one tried to get the knife to stick upright in the ground would then be played, one player at a time. If, in going through the routine of the dozen events, the knife failed to stick, the player had to pass to the next player. Depending upon those playing, the player who failed an event either had to start over or continue on after the other player or players missed. The first player to complete all of the events with a “Good Stick”, either going right through all of them, or stuttering through after misses, was the winner. The final one left had to “Bite the Peg.”

A “Good Stick” usually meant that two or three fingers could be inserted under the back edge of the stuck knife. The exact number was agreed on before beginning the play.

THE EVENTS

1.	Forward Flip. Knife, with blade open and facing forward in the palm of ones hand, is tossed into the air, blade coming back towards the player, and sticking into the ground. 2.	Backward 1½  Flip. Knife, with blade open and facing in the palm toward the player, is flipped into the air, handle coming back towards the player, and sticking into the ground after a flip and a half. 3.	Pit the Cherry. A circle is made with the thumb and forefinger of the left hand (or the right if the player is left-handed), and the knife is dropped blade first through the circle to stick in the ground. This may be the easiest of the tricks. 4.	Spank the Baby – Right. The knife is held in the left hand with the tip of the blade sticking between the first and second finger of the left hand. The knife is “spanked” downward by striking the haft of the knife with the right hand. The blade goes around three quarters of a turn and sticks in the ground. The trick is to hold the knife the proper distance above the ground so the blade will stick. 5.	Spank the Baby – Left. The same as the previous trick but with the knife in the right hand and “spanked” with the left. I think the idea of having this event was simply not to give any edge to a right or left handed person. 6.	Tip of the Finger. The knife is held by one finger on its back end with the tip of the blade standing straight up on the upturned index finger of the other hand. (Player has choice of hands.) Balancing the blade momentarily on the tip of the finger, the hand is removed from the back of the knife. Then, the knife is flicked in a complete somersault and, hopefully, it sticks in the ground. 7.	Knee Flip. The knife is held, point down on ones knee. With one finger on the back of the knife, it is made to do a flip and stick in the ground. 8.	Foot Flip. The same trick with the knife held point down on ones shoe – or big toe if you were barefoot. 9.	Jump the Fence. Kneeling, the knife was stuck in the ground immediately to your right or left, your preference. Say it was on the right. You would make a “Fence” with your left hand and smack the knife over it with your right. The idea was for it to do a flip and stick in the ground on the other side of the “Fence.” 10.	Over the Top. The knife was simply thrown backwards over ones head with the expected result of it sticking in the ground behind the player. I do not remember anyone caring whether it flipped over or not, though it usually did. 11.	Double. Standing, the knife was thrown forward at the ground, sticking after two complete somersaults. 12.	Inward Double. Held in the palm as in number one, with the blade facing away, a double somersault back towards the player was made with an upward throwing motion. 99.55.165.44 (talk) 23:01, 7 May 2010 (UTC)Frank B. Nieman, 3022 Vessing Road, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523-4517 I am getting near 78 years old.