Summary

Game name (and type): 'Three Jolly Welsh Men' (chasing game)
Alternative type: running game, language play, guessing game

Handwritten description of the chasing game 'Three Jolly Welsh Men' composed for Dr Dorothy Howard by an unknown Aboriginal child, a student at Ceduna Higher Primary School, circa March 1955. According to the author, children form two teams of three players who stand about twenty yards apart. One team selects a profession secretly such washing dishes then approach the opposing team chanting 'Three jolly Welsh men coming to your work'. The opponents attempt to guess the trade. If successful, the author writes that the opponents must chase the approaching 'Welsh men'.

One of a collection of letters describing a children's games written to children's Folklorist Dorothy Howard between 1954 and 1955. Dr Howard came to Australia in 1954-55 as an American Fulbright scholar to study Australian children's folklore. She travelled across Australia for 10 months collecting children's playground rhymes, games, play artefacts, etc. This letter, together with the other original fieldwork collected by Dr Howard during this period, is preserved in the Dorothy Howard Collection manuscript files, part of the Australian Children's Folklore Collection (ACFC), Archive Series 3. The ACFC is an extensive collection documenting children's folklore and related research.

Physical Description

Handwritten game description in blue ink on lined paper. Text printed on one side only. Handwritten annotation in blue ink in a different hand along bottom portion of page.

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