The players provide themselves with short, stout sticks, and a peg (a piece of wood sharpened at one or both ends). A ring is made, and the peg is placed on the ground so as to balance. One boy then strikes it with his stick to make it spring or bounce up into the air; while in the air he strikes it with his stick, and sends it as far as he possibly can. His opponent declares the number of leaps in which the striker is to cover the distance the peg has gone. If successful, he counts the number of leaps to his score. If he fails, his opponent leaps, and, if successful, the number of leaps count to his score. He strikes the next time, and the same process is gone through.—Earls Heaton, Yorks. (Herbert Hardy).
See “[Tip-cat].”
Peg-fiched
A west country game. The performers in this game are each furnished with a sharp-pointed stake. One of them then strikes it into the ground, and the others, throwing their sticks across it, endeavour to dislodge it. When a stick falls, the owner has to run to a prescribed distance and back, while the rest, placing the stick upright, endeavour to beat it into the ground up to the very top.—Halliwell’s Dictionary.
Peggy Nut
A boyish game with nuts.—Dickinson’s Cumberland Glossary.
Peg-in-the-Ring
A game of “[Peg-top].” The object of this game is to spin the top within a certain circle marked out, in which the top is to exhaust itself without once overstepping the bounds prescribed (Halliwell’s Dict. Provincialisms). Holloway (Dictionary) says, “When boys play at ‘[Peg-top],’ a ring is formed on the ground, within which each boy is to spin his top. If the top, when it has ceased spinning, does not roll without the circle, it must remain in the ring to be pegged at by the other boys, or he redeems it by putting in an inferior one, which is called a ‘Mull.’ When the top does not roll out, it is said to be ‘mulled.’” Mr. Emslie writes: “When the top fell within the ring the boys cried, ‘One a penny!’ When two had fallen within the ring it was, ‘Two a penny!’ When three, ‘Three a penny, good as any!’ The aim of each spinner was to do what was called ‘drawing,’ i.e., bring his top down into the ring, and at the same time draw the string so as to make the top spin within the ring, and yet come towards the player and out of the ring so as to fall without.”
See “[Tops].”