This game is played by three, four, or more, who stand in a circle. A child then addresses his left-hand neighbor, and the dialogue is:
"Hul Gul."
"Hands full."
"Parcel how many?"
The second player then guesses the number, two guesses being sometimes allowed. If, for example, the guess is five, and the real number seven, the first responds, "Give me two to make it seven," and so on until all the counters have been gained by one player. The number allowed to be taken is often limited, by agreement, to six or ten.
The counters are beans, grains of corn, marbles, nuts, and, in the South, chinquapins.[95]
A childish trick is to expand the hand as if unable to hold the number of counters, when in fact they are but one or two. Oddly enough, this same device is alluded to by Xenophon as in use in his day in the game of "How many?"—the classic equivalent of our game, in which the question was, "How many have I in the hand?" just as we say, "Parcel how many?" So, in these sports, the interval of two thousand years vanishes.
No. 93.
How many Fingers?
A child hides his head on another's lap, and guesses the number of fingers raised. We find a rhyme for this given in the "Girls' Own Book."
"Mingledy, mingledy, clap, clap, clap,
How many fingers do I hold up?"
"Three."
"Three you said, and two it was," etc.
Another form of this game consists in schoolboys mounting on each other's back and raising fingers, of which the number is to be guessed. The English formula for this purpose is given by Tylor thus, "Buck, buck, how many horns do I hold up?" We are not aware that the practice continues to exist in this country.
In the famous finger-game of "Morra," the sum of the fingers raised by the two players is counted. The game is played with such rapidity, and the calling is so rapid, that conjecture plays a larger part in the game than eyesight. "Morra" has been a favorite for nearly four thousand years, for it is represented on early Egyptian monuments, where the players are depicted as using the right hand, and scoring with the left, very much as is done in the south of Europe at the present day.