What are the Peasant Children Doing? (d84)

1

Playing with dolls

Some Beautiful, most quite ugly.

2

Playing 'Holy Mass'

Small liturgical objects used at Mass and Liturgies

3

Water gun and owl on support

Shooting water at a bird

4

Wearing masks

Wearing disguises for fun

5

Swing

The classic hanging seat

6

Climbing a fence

A popular pastime with neighbour's fences

7

Handstand

There are many variations of handstands, but all that matters is balance

8

Play the "knot"

Bending the body to contorted positions

9

Somersault

Flipping and rolling forwards, backwards, or sideways

10

Fence riding

Again, a fence game

11

Mock wedding

It is exactly at the diagonal centre of the panel. Perhaps an irony of the holy sacrament, or a reference to the main event that allows conception of children. Mock child weddings have been common folk tradition many places in Europe, and were often celebrated at Midsummer.

12

Passing through kicking legs - running the gauntlet

Painful but dynamic

13

Blind Man's Bluff

Blind fortune

14

Playing with birds

Ever popular

15

Making hats with twigs

Basket weaving

16

Soap bubbles

Still a popular pastime, Bruegel shows children blowing bubbles with clay pipes and verifies soap bubbles being used as entertainment for at least 400 years

17

Shell bobbin

A flying spinneret made of nut shells

18

The "Toton"

Forerunner of the roulette and dice games

19

Toy animal with leash

A stone dog of sorts

20

Knucklebones

Game of very ancient origin, played with five small objects, originally the "knucklebones" (actually the astragalus: a bone in the ankle, or hock) of a sheep, which are thrown up and caught in various ways

21

Mock baptismal

Re-enacting the procession of adults carrying home a baby just baptized. The blue hood symbolises deception ("hooding the husband" meant to cuckold him, as shown in Bruegel's Netherlandish Proverbs).

22

Morra

A hand game - similar to rock, paper, scissors - that dates back thousands of years to ancient Roman and Greek times

23

Piñata

A papier-mâché or other type of container that is decorated, filled with toys and or candy and then broken, usually as part of a ceremony or celebration

24

Walk on stilts

Walking poles equipped with steps for the feet to stand on, they can be short (like here) or long (see number 62)

25

Play leapfrog

Vaulting over each other's stooped backs

26

Mock tournaments

Competitions of various kind

27

The "Pope's seat"

Holding the child by gripping hands

28

Hobby-horse

Riding a wooden hobby horse made of a straight stick with a small horse's head

29

Stirring excrements with a stick

The best game for children to play.

30

Playing the flute and the drum

Playing simple music with basic instruments, always popular with kids

31

The simple roll hoop

Children and adults around the world have played with hoops, twirling, rolling and throwing them throughout history

32

Shouting into a barrel from a hole

The many uses of a barrel

33

The hoop with bells

A variation of rolling the hoop

34

Riding the barrel

With barrel vaulting, another popular play

35

Hat throwing

Throw them through a child's open legs, or see who throws farthest

36

Raisinbread man

A man-shaped loaf of bread, most likely some sort of Dutch duivekater, offered during wakes or at Christmas

37

The penalty of "bumbouncing"

Bouncing someone's buttocks on planks

38

Ball made with an inflated pig's bladder

Inflating a pig's bladder to create a balloon

39

Buck buck[4]

A group of children had to create a "pony" and another had to leap on their backs until the weight made it crumble

40

To play shop

On the wooden plank below the funnel Bruegel inscribed "BRUEGEL 1560" Red pigment was made from scraping bricks and was most famous from Antwerp.

41

Playing Tiddlywinks

Played with small discs called "winks", a pot, and a collection of squidgers. The children use a "squidger" (a disk) to propel a wink into flight by pressing down on a wink, thereby flicking it into the air: the objective of the game is to score points by sending one's own winks into the pot

42

Playing Mumblety-peg

An old outdoor game played by children using pocketknives

43

Building (a well)

Like sandcastles on a beach, building is ever popular

44

Pulling hair

A game or a fight?

45

Catching insects with a net

Not only butterflies

46

Playing the scourge

Not a safe game

47

Playing marbles

Ancient and still going strong nowadays

48

Pitch and toss

The players each take a coin and take turns tossing them towards the wall: the coin the closest to the wall wins

49

Twirling a hat on a stick

Clowns do it regularly

50

Making a procession

Popular among children and adults, in diverse applications

51

Playing the porter

or goalkeeper?

52

Who's got the ball?

Hiding the ball and guessing who has it

53

Riding piggyback

Still going strong, riding on someone's shoulders

54

Singing door-to-door

Especially now at Christmas, with carols

55

Bonfire

Lighting a fire, a dangerous but ever-practiced activity

56

Riding a broom

A variation of hobby-horse, but with many players

57

Pushing a wall

good for exercising muscles

58

Hide-and-seek

Or "hide and go seek", a game in which a number of players conceal themselves in the environment, to be found by one or more seekers

59

The "devil's tail" or the "snake"

Role play as a street game

60

Grappling

A basic form of wrestling

61

The "devil chained"

Role play as a street game

62

Run, jump on a cellar's door

Noisy and unsafe

63

Bowling

Players attempt to score points by rolling a ball along a flat surface, either into pins or to get close to a target ball

64

The token

Running and handing off the baton to the next runner

65

Throwing walnuts

Perhaps a variation of bowling or bocce, hitting an assembled cluster of nuts

66

High stilts

Walking on long poles

67

Pole vaulting

Exercising on a horizontally fixed bar

68

Balancing a stick on a finger

A clownish game of balance

69

Put up a show

Enacting a play

70

Spinning tops

Using toys that can be spun on an axis, balancing on a point

71

The trolleys

Baskets moving on a line

72

Flying a ribbon on a stick

Letting a piece of cloth fly in the wind from a stick

73

Whom shall I choose?

A girl selects her "baby" from a group of friends under a blanket

74

Urinating

Technically, not quite a game but practiced often

75

Bocce

In teams, throwing the bocce balls closest to the jack ball

76

Pirouetting skirts

Swirling the girls' skirts round and round

77

Climbing a tree

78

Swimming

A healthy recreational exercise, enjoying a full-body workout

79

Diving

Jumping or falling into water is always fun for children

80

Floating with an inflated pig's bladder

A sheep's bladder was also used, to float on top of it or to play water games

81

Dethroning the King

Role play

82

Playing with sand

Building castles and digging holes

83

Coil tournament

A fight of knights

84

Rattles

Noisy musical game