BLINDMAN'S BUFF

children's game played as early as 2,000 years ago in Greece. The game is variously known in Europe: Italy, mosca cieca (blind fly); Germany, Blinderkuh (blind cow); Sweden, blindbock (blind buck); Spain, gallina ciega (blind hen); and France, colin-maillard (named for a medieval French lord who kept laying about him with his sword after he had been blinded in battle). One player is carefully blindfolded and then disoriented by being spun around several times. The other players, who are not blindfolded, amuse themselves by calling out to the blind man and dodging away from him. In the Middle Ages it was an adult game, and the blindfolded player was usually struck and buffeted as well, hence buff. A player touched or caught by the blind man takes on the blindfold, although sometimes the blind man must guess the identity of his captive before the blindfold is removed (if the guess is wrong, the captive is released and the game continues). The game has been popular at later times among adults: the English diarist Samuel Pepys reported a game played by his wife and some friends in 1664, and the English poet laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson is said to have played it in 1855.