The Muffin Man - The Game

The Game

Iona and Peter Opie observed that, although the rhyme had remained fairly consistent, the game associated with it has changed at least three times including: as a forfeit game, a guessing game and a dancing ring.

In The Young Lady's Book, published in 1888, Mrs Henry Mackarness described the game as:

The first player turns to the one next her, and to some sing-song tune exclaims:

"Do you know the muffin man, the muffin man, the muffin man?
Do you know the muffin man, who lives on Drury Lane?"
The person addressed replies to the same tune:
"Yes, I know the muffin man, the muffin man, the muffin man;
Oh, yes, I know the muffin man, who lives on Drury Lane."
Upon this they both exclaim:
"Then two of us know the muffin man, the muffin man," &c.
No. 2 then turns to No. 3, repeating the same words, who replies in the same way, only saying, "Three of us know the muffin man," &c. No. 3 then turns to No. 4, and so on round the room, the same question and answer being repeated, the chorus only varied by the addition of one more number each time.

Verses beyond those described in the book have been sung. For example, the song may be concluded, "We all know the Muffin Man…"

Read more about this topic:  The Muffin Man

Famous quotes containing the word game:

    “Neighboring farmers and visitors at White Sulphur drove out occasionally to watch ‘those funny Scotchmen’ with amused superiority; when one member imported clubs from Scotland, they were held for three weeks by customs officials who could not believe that any game could be played with ‘such elongated blackjacks or implements of murder.’”
    —For the State of West Virginia, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    “The family environment in which your children are growing up is different from that in which you grew up. The decisions our parents made and the strategies they used were developed in a different context from what we face today, even if the “content” of the problem is the same. It is a mistake to think that our own experience as children and adolescents will give us all we need to help our children. The rules of the game have changed.”
    —Lawrence Kutner (20th century)