hide and seek

   The most basic of children's games where somebody or something is hidden and then sought, hide and seek exists in a multitude of versions of which there are two basic forms. In the first form, an item is hidden and the seeker has to find it, while the other players indicate how far he/she is from the item by shouting 'warm' (for close), 'cold' (for far away), and so on. This version is normally named after the item being sought - Hunt the Thimble, for example. Nowadays played almost exclusively by small children, or by adults with small children to amuse, it was one of the most popular Victorian parlour games, especially at *Christmas time.

   The second basic form is where all the players except one (the seeker) go and hide. After an agreed interval - enforced by the seeker counting to a hundred, or something similar - he/she has to find the others, and the first one found becomes the new seeker and the last found is the winner. Again, in this simple form Hide and Seek is mainly played by small children, but played outdoors with additions, such as allowing the players to change their hiding places, it is still the basis for many popular games. A number of characteristic calls have developed, such as 'All hid! All hid!' when the players are ready, or 'Ready or not, here I come!' when the seeker has finished counting, and these have become proverbial in their own right. What appear to be the earliest documentary references to the game are in fact allusions to these sayings, and cannot therefore be counted as definite. Nevertheless, if these prove to be true indications, the game has a long history, as Biron says in Shakespeare's Love's Labours Lost (IV. iii) 'All hid, all hid - an old infant play' and Dekker 'Our unhansome-fac'd poet does play bo-peepes with your Grace, and cryes all-hidde as boyes doe' (Satiro-mastix (1602), v. iii). Gomme, 1894: i. 211-14; Opie and Opie, 1969: 151-75.