Summary

Game types: riddle, joke
Alternative types: language play

Handwritten transcriptions of a riddle and a joke composed for Dr Dorothy Howard by Ruth McAlpin, a student at East Camberwell Girls Secondary School, in 1954-1955. The riddle and joke comprise the following respectively: 'What is black and white and red all over? Answer: a newspaper' and 'Scratch your head and say leaf very fast. (Result should be it would sound like flea flea).'

One of a collection of letters describing a children's game 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 annotation in blue ink on lined paper. Features lines in red pencil; text written on one side of page.

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