Egg tapping
| Players | 2 |
|---|---|
| Random chance | High (egg durability) |
Egg tapping, or also known as egg fight, egg knocking, egg pacqueing, egg boxing, egg picking, or egg jarping is a traditional Easter game. In English folk traditions, the game has variously been known as "shackling", "jarping" or "dumping".
The rule of the game is simple. One holds a hard-boiled egg and taps the egg of another participant with one's own egg intending to break the other's, without breaking one's own. As with any other game, it has been a subject of cheating; eggs with cement, alabaster, and even marble cores have been reported.
The egg was a symbol of rebirth, adopted by early Christians as a symbol of the resurrection of Jesus at Easter.
During medieval times, egg tapping was practiced in Europe. For instance, the practice was mentioned to have played an important part in the 14th century in Zagreb in relation to the Easter festival. A study of folklore quotes an early 15th-century reference Poland.
In North America, in colonial New Amsterdam in the 1600s, "cracking of eggs" was played as a game by children on Easter Monday with the winner keeping both eggs.
During the Revolutionary war egg picking was observed by a British prisoner of war, Thomas Anbury, in Frederick Town in Maryland in 1781 during the American Revolutionary War. The local custom at that time was to dye the eggs with Logwood or Bloodwood to give them a crimson color which as Anbury observed gave them "great strength". Thomas Anbury was a young British officer who travelled extensively as a prisoner-of-war during the American Revolution. Anbury was near Frederick Town in Maryland, July 11, 1781, when he noted the egg picking custom which was prevalent at that time.
By the mid-20th century, a Baltimore Maryland newspaper, the Evening Sun would devote an editorial column to discussing street cries, ritual, techniques for the game. Clarkson cites the Baltimore Evening Sun for 29 March 1933 (editorial page), and in the Sunday Sun for 17 April 1949 (brown section).
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