Newell (Games of American Children, p. 90) gives a version of this game.[Addendum]
Drawing Dun out of the Mire
Brand, quoting from “an old collection of satires, epigrams, &c.,” says this game is enumerated among other pastimes:
At shove-groat, venter-point, or crosse and pile,
At leaping o’er a Midsummer bone-fier,
Or at the drawing Dun out of the myer.
So in the Dutchesse of Suffolke, 1631:
Well done, my masters, lends your hands,
Draw Dun out of the ditch,
Draw, pull, helpe all, so, so, well done.
[They pull him out.]
They had shoved Bishop Bonner into a well, and were pulling him out.
We find this game noticed at least as early as Chaucer’s time, in the Manciple’s Prologue:
Then gan our hoste to jape and to play,
And sayd, sires, what? Dun is in the mire.
Nares (Glossary) says this game was a rural pastime, in which Dun meant a dun horse, supposed to be stuck in the mire, and sometimes represented by one of the persons who played.