A pastime in which flat stones or slates are thrown upon the surface of a piece of water, so that they may dip and emerge several times without sinking (Brockett’s North Country Words). “Neither cross and pile nor ducks and drakes are quite so ancient as hand dandy” (Arbuthnot and Pope, quoted in Todd’s Johnson).
Halliwell gives the words used in the game both formerly and at the present day. If the stone emerges only once it is a duck, and increasing in the following order:—
- 2. A duck and a drake,
- 3. And a halfpenny cake,
- 4. And a penny to pay the old baker,
- 5. A hop and a scotch is another notch,
- 6. Slitherum, slatherum, take her.
—Halliwell’s Dictionary.
Hen-pen,
Duck and mallard,
Amen.
—Somersetshire (Holloway’s Dict. of Provincialisms).
A duck and a drake
And a white penny cake.
—Hampshire (Holloway’s Dict. of Provincialisms).
A duck and a drake
And a penny white cake,
And a skew ball.