Folklore: Hide and Seek, in other languages

Subject: Folklore: Hide and Seek, in other languages
From: semi-submersible
Date: 28 Dec 08 - 09:14 PM

Someone at WordReference.com Forum recently asked what Mexican children, when playing hide and seek ("el escondite") call out just before coming to look for their hidden playmates.

Someone from Colombia remembered a very literal equivalent of the English "Ready or not, here I come": "Listos o no, aqui voy."

In Argentina they used a rhyme: "Punto y coma, el que no se escondió se embroma." In English this would translate something like, "Period and comma, whoever's not hidden is in for it." (For British English, read "full stop" for "period.")

So, any more variants, in Spanish, English, or other tongues?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Hide and Seek, in other languages
From: Azizi
Date: 28 Dec 08 - 09:40 PM

semi-submersible,if I understand you correctly, you're looking for translations of the phrase "hide and [go] seek", and not how the game is played.

However, you might be interested in the following information from http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:eVnKFx8xFzQJ:www.newworldrecords.org/linernotes/80291.pdf+all+hid+bessie+jones&hl=en&ct=clnk [Old MotherHippletoe-Rural And Urban Children's Songs, New World BQ 291; liner notes-Kate Rinzler, pp 29-30]


"Games and Dances from the Past Band 4, Item 1 All Hid Bessie Jones, vocal. Recorded c. 1970 in Los Angeles by Bess Hawes

Hide-and-seek is one of the most widely played hiding games in this country and is known in a multitude of variations around the world. A nineteenth-century English countout for hide-and-seek is chanted: One a bin, two a bin, three a bin, four, Five a bin, six a bin, seven gie o'er: A bunch of pins, come prick my shins, A loaf of brown bread, come knock me down. I'm coming. (Gomme, p.211: see Bibliography) Black children playing hide and- seek in the South borrowed and revised such verses to sing as the seeker waited for the other children to hide.

The words of "All Hid" derive from three sources. The variations of the query "All hid?," the responses from hiding children, and the counting out by ones, twos, and so on are commonplaces in hide-and-seek as played in England and America; the countout formula ("One, two...") is a counting rhyme like the well-known "One, two, buckle my shoe"; and the verses about acquiring a lame horse to cross a river are borrowed from humorous songs of black tradition.

Honey, honey, bee ball,I can't see y'all.All hid?"No-o-o!" Is all hid?"No-o-o!" I went to the river, I couldn't get across. I paid five dollars for an old gray horse. One leg broke, the other leg cracked, And great Godamighty how the horse did rack. Is all hid?"No-o-o!" Is all hid?"No-o-o!" I went down the road, The road was muddy. Stubbed my toe And made it bloody. 'S all hid?"No-o-o!" Is all hid?"No-o-o!" Me and my wife and a bobtail dog, We crossed that river on a hickory log. She fell in, and I fell off, And left nobody but the bobtail dog. Is all hid?"No-o-o!" Is all hid?"No-o-o!"

One, two, I don't know what to do. Three, four, I don't know where to go. Five, six, I'm in a terrible fix. Seven, eight, I made a mistake. Nine, ten, My eyes open— I'm lookin


[quoted with minor formatting changes]

**

Bessie Jones folk songs and games from the Gullah African American people of Georgia. Fwiw, this wasn't the way I played hide & go seek when I was growing up in Southern [New] Jersey in the 1950s. And African American children in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where I now live don't play hide & seek as it is described in the above quote.

It would be interesting to find out if children come from the Gullah region of Georgia still play that game that way.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Hide and Seek, in other languages
From: semi-submersible
Date: 30 Dec 08 - 08:11 PM

Huh! I must've had a deprived childhood. We just counted slowly to twenty, then called "Ready or not, here I come!"

Subject: RE: Folklore: Hide and Seek, in other languages
From: terrier
Date: 30 Dec 08 - 08:26 PM

Azizi, you're a gem, thanx for that :)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Hide and Seek, in other languages
From: GUEST,Allyn
Date: 11 Apr 10 - 08:48 AM

Azizi-
Thanks for posting that. I was looking for that because I wanted to teach it to some kids I look after who can't seem to count long enough for the others to hide. I'd asked other people for the lyrics and they just looked at me like, "Huh?" I was beginning to think I imagined playing the game like that.

Oh, I didn't grow up in Georgia. I grew up near San Francisco, CA. Our version was slightly different.

I'm posting it just to add a bit more to the discussion:


Honey, honey, you'd be all, but I can't see y'all. Is all hid? "No-o-o!" Is all hid? "No-o-o!"
Went to the river but we couldn't get across
We'd paid five dollars for an ol' dead horse.
It's back was broke and it's knee was cracked,
And God all mighty how the horse did rack.
Is all hid?"No-o-o!" Is all hid?"No-o-o!"
I went down the road, The road was muddy. Stubbed my toe And made it bloody.
Is all hid?"No-o-o!" Is all hid?"No-o-o!"
Me and my wife and a bobtailed dog, Crossed that river on a hick'ry log. She fell in, and I fell off, that left nobody but the bobtailed dog.
Is all hid?"No-o-o!" Is all hid?"No-o-o!"

[Tune changes:]
Well, I ain't been to 'Frisco, I aint been to school, I aint been to college but I aint no fool. To the left to the right to the sa-sa-side.

Is all hid? Nooo. Is All hid... Nooo.

One, two, don't know what to do. Three, four I'm coming out the door, Five Six Hide or be in a fix Seven Eight It's getting really late Nine ten Too bad 'cause I'm a coming


When playing as a kid we usually only got a few verses in before everyone would stop responding. Occasionally someone who not from our neighborhood wouldn't realize that silence meant everyone was hidden so they'd keep singing until some impatient kid would shout "YES, ALREADY! SHUT UP!" Also, the San Francisco lyric and the school lyric were both kind of ironic additions considering at the time we were all going to school in what was then the 415 area code, and everyone had been to the city.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Hide and Seek, in other languages
From: GUEST,Ren
Date: 13 Aug 12 - 12:20 PM

We played a similar version in Arkansas...."honey honey bee ball, bee ball, bee ball. I cant see y'all, see y'all, see y'all! Last night, night before, 24 robbers at my door. I got up and let them in, hit me in the head with a rolling pin!"
Then we counted slowly to 10, then shouted, "ready or not! Here I come!"
...kept us busy for hours! Lol.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Hide and Seek, in other languages
From: GUEST,John Foxen
Date: 14 Aug 12 - 11:17 AM

In the Black Country (for our international Catters, that's in the English midlands) they chanted Oller Boller, If you don't come then I must foller, or so the splendid Bill Caddick tells us.
Mudcat thread on oller boller

Subject: RE: Folklore: Hide and Seek, in other languages
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Apr 21 - 08:46 PM

Honey Honey bee ball, I cant see yawl, all not hidden holler eye ball!