Cat's Cradle Game History

The best guess of most historians is that Cats Cradle got its start in a rudimentary form somewhere in Southeast Asia near China and Korea where the game is still played today.

Cat's cradle game history. The cats cradle string game has been played since ancient times all over the world. Some sources say that children played Cats Cradle in England as early as 1782. Included are directions for four classic string games.

WORDS RECITED DURING STRING GAMES. String games like this one have a rich and varied history. Our Cats Cradle and Other String Games 3014 uses the Haddon and Rivers terminology for defining the strings on the fingers and features jumbo yarn.

In the American colonies Cats Cradle or Cratch Cradle was one of the earliest and most popular of all known string games. The use of cats in the cradle to describe something dangerous appears to come from an old wives tale that if allowed into its crib a cat would kill an infant by sucking out its breath. Cats Cradlegets its name from the childrens game.

String games such as Cats Cradle have been played around the world for thousands if not millions of years. Whale and fox. The question of who first played cats cradle the childrens game in which two players alternately take from each others fingers an intertwined cord so as always to produce a symmetrical figure is almost as contentious as the origin of its name.

Included are directions for four classic string games. Along with its cousins -- Jacobs ladder cup and saucer crows feet -- it is played by schoolchildren everywhere. String figures are a storytelling tradition in many cultures around the world including among Arctic Indigenous Peoples Aboriginal.

CATS CRADLE is one of the worlds simplest string games. Back when I was in middle school I went through a phase where I was really into cats cradle. Cats Cradle has moved a few times in its 50 years including to locations on Franklin and Rosemary streets in Chapel Hill.