The Hanging Game

Contents

1. The Hanging Game (England).

2. Boys Try Beheading (Germany/Poland).

The Hanging Game

England

Some years ago, when driving past a gallows standing in a field at Melton Ross, an old man told me a curious tale. He said, "Some hundred of years ago, three or four boys were playing at hanging, and seeing who could hang the longest in a tree. Just as one of them got up and put the noose on, a three-legged hare (the devil, sir) came limping past, and off the other lads ran after him, and forgot their comrade. They very nearly caught the hare several times, but he got away. And when they came back the lad in the tree was dead. That's what the gallows was put up for."

• Source: Eliza Gutch and Mabel Peacock, County Folk-Lore, v. 5: Examples of Printed Folk-Lore Concerning Lincolnshire (London: David Nutt, 1908), p. 349.

• Gutch's and Peacock's source: L., Notes and Queries, v. 1 (1849), p. 166.

• Gutch and Peacock do not give this local legend a title.

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Boys Try Beheading

Germany/Poland

In Damsdorf many years ago a number of boys were herding cattle in a field. One Sunday morning Farmer Bruhnke was suddenly overcome by an uncanny fear, and he rushed out to the field to see what the herders were doing. He had scarcely left the village when a little man came his way who asked him where he was going. Bruhnke told him, and the little man replied that he had just passed the boys, who were passing the time by playing a game.

Bruhnke was relieved, but as he took leave of the little man, he noticed that the latter had a hen's foot. He ran as fast as his feet would carry him to the herding place, but it was too late. The head of one of the herders was already dancing on the ground.

The boys had wanted to see how beheading went. To this end they built themselves an actual guillotine, fastening an old blade from a straw cutter onto a platform to serve as an ax. They all tried it, but just as they tied the last one to the block, a three-legged hare came limping by, and the boys ran after it, completely forgetting their comrade and the cattle. The prisoner tried to free himself of his bonds, but his motions released the blade, and the unfortunate boy paid for his game with his life.

• Source: Otto Knoop, "Knaben probiren das Köpfen," Volkssagen, Erzählungen, Aberglauben, Gebräuche und Märchen aus dem östlichen Hinterpommern (Posen: Verlag von Joseph Jolowicz, 1885), no. 41, pp. 24-25.

• Translated by D. L. Ashliman. © 2000.

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Revised July 22, 2000.