"What devil was 't
That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind."
A dictionary of Shakespeare's time couples this name for the pastime with the one that has survived: "The Hoodwinke play, or hoodmanblinde, in some places called the blindmanbuf." Hamlet's question is evidently suggested by the practice of making the "blind man" guess whom he has caught—as Greek and Roman boys did when they played the game.
In the grave-digging scene (v. 1. 100) Hamlet asks: "Did these bones cost no more the breeding but to play at loggats with them?" This refers to the throwing of loggats or loggets—small logs, or sticks of wood much like "Indian clubs"—at a stake, the player coming nearest to it being the winner.
In a poem of 1611 we find loggats in a list of games with sundry others that are still in vogue:—
"To wrastle, play at stooleball, or to runne,
To pich the Barre, or to shoote off a Gunne,
To play at Loggets, Nine-holes, or Ten-pinnes;
To try it out at Foot-ball by the shinnes."
