Children's Games in Breugel's 1560 Painting "Children's Games, Ranked"

Breugel, Children's Games
Bruegel, Children's Games

I understand it – but I do not want to play it

"The penalty of 'bumbouncing'" (bouncing someone's buttocks on a plank)

Catching insects with a net

Marbles

Playing the scourge

Pitch and toss

Pushing a wall

Walking on high stilts

Pole vaulting

Bocce ball


I enjoyed this game as a child and it pleases me to think of this activity connecting my childhood with the childhoods of some long-dead Dutch children

Flute and drum

Playing with dolls

Climbing a tree

Swimming

Somersault

Wearing masks

Swinging from hanging seat

Toy animal on leash

Piñata

Walking on short stilts

Leapfrog

Playing shop

Put on a show

Bowling

Hide-and-seek

Crack the whip


I did not play this game and now I am seething with jealousy

Rolling a hoop

Rolling a hoop with bells on it

Mock baptism

Mock tournaments

Building a well

Riding a barrel

Hat throwing

Playing "Holy Mass"

Shooting water gun at owl

Handstand

Twirling in a big skirt

Diving

Throwing sand

Blind Man's Bluff

Non-specific "playing with birds"

Making hats with twigs

Blowing soap bubbles

Rattles


I have no strong feelings about this activity

Climbing a fence

Play the "knot" (essentially sit cross-legged and draw your legs up to your chin?)

Fence riding (pretending the fence is a horse)


I wish I could play this now

Mock wedding

Running through gauntlet of kicking legs

Twirling hat on a stick

Procession

Playing porter

Who's got the ball?

Riding piggyback

Caroling

Lighting a bonfire

Riding a broom

Grappling

The "devil chained"

Run and jump on a cellar door

Pass the baton

Throwing walnuts

Spinning tops

Playing trolleys

Flying a ribbon on a stick

Whom shall I choose?

Balancing a stick on a finger


I don't think this is a game at all

Urinating

Pulling hair

Shit-stirring, literal


I don't think this is a game but I would still like to do it

Shouting into a barrel


No thank you

Making a ball out of an inflated animal bladder

Knucklebones

Morra (rock-paper-scissors)

"The Pope's seat" (interlacing your hand with someone else's hand and letting someone else sit in your hands like a chair while you parade them around)

Teetotum (spinning top)


Inscrutable, but I still want to play it

"Raisinbread man"

Mumblety-peg

Coil tournament

Floating down a river holding an inflated pig's bladder

Dethroning the king

Buck buck


Inscrutable, don't want to play it

Shell bobbin (apparently "a flying spinneret made out of nut shells"?)

Hobby-horse

Tiddlywinks

[Games identified here]