Folk sports and traditional games in Europe
Folk sports is a comprehensive term for a diverse group of sports and games whose
common element is their status as being “popular” or related to folk culture. Folk sports
include especially traditional, ethnic, or indigenous sports and games, but also new
activities that are based on traditional practices. Pub games, noncompetitive volkwalks,
mass gymnastics, spontaneous sports of the working classes, and games and sports
associated with festivals may all be termed as “folk”.
Traditional games had in general their roots before industrial modernity. When
modern sport emerged with its principles of achievement and specialization, folk games
either disappeared or continued beneath the surface of dominant sport. Peasants and later
workers organized their own and local games in a way of self-management, often in the
very environment of their working place.
Despite the origin of folk sport activities in the pre-industrial world, the idea of
“folk sports” is an invention of the industrial age. During the twentieth century, folk
sports became related in some countries to recreational Sport for all. Folk sports are
based on festivity and community, rather than on disciplinary rules and the production of
results.
History – histories
Folk sports and traditional games are neither one sport nor a well-defined group of sports,
and so they have not one single, linear history. They are as distinct in different countries
as the words for “folk” in different languages: volk (Flemish, German), narod (Russian),
peuple (French), folk (Danish, Swedish, English), popolo (Italian), and folk or people
(English). The concept is European, but games around the world are often labeled as folk
sports, too.
Folk sports and the terminology of “folk” may in some cases be attached to a
particular ideology, whether rightwing (German völkisches Turnen) or leftwing (Italian
sport popolare). In Portugal, there was differentiated between “traditional games” (jogos
tradicionais) with romantic, conservative, and idyllic undertones on one hand and
“popular games” (jogos populares) with undertones of people’s culture and selfdetermination, as promoted by leftwing milieus. But in most cases, folk sports are not
connected with particular political ideas.
Pre-modern folk games and festivities
Folk sports as a concept did not exist before the industrial age, because there was neither
"sport" in the modern sense, nor did one use the notion of "folk" with its modern
connotations of collective cultural identity, nor did one place “tradition” on a
“progressive” line of historical development. In earlier times, sport meant pastimes and
recreation (hunting, falconry, fishing) of the upper classes, mainly the nobility and
gentry, who distinguished themselves from the "folk." Also the aristocratic tournaments
and the later noble exercises were exclusive, both by gender and class.
Meanwhile, the common people, both rural and urban, unfolded their own culture
of festivity and recreation. Games and competitions of strength and agility were
combined with dances, music, and ritual to form a rich array of activities at festivals and
celebrations. These were connected with religious and seasonal events, which often were
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Christianized forms of pagan celebrations – like Christmas (Jul), erecting the May tree,
Shrovetide and carnival, Midsummer dance (Valborg, St. John), harvest festivals, local
fairs, a saint's day or church festival (kermis), marriage, revel, ale, and wake. Games
brought suspense and excitement into a world of routine, and allowed flirting and
physical contact between men and women. That is why the erotic and gender relations of
traditional folk sports deserve special attention. Their diversity mirrored the inner
tensions and distinctions inside the folk and transgressed sometimes the rigid barriers
between the social classes.
Besides class, gender was an important framework for folk games. Many premodern folk sports were reserved for men. In competitions based on strength such as
wrestling, stone lifting, tossing the caber, and finger drawing, the "strong man" was the
admired image, not the "strong woman”. In Scotland, the "stone of manhood" (Gaelic
claich cuid fir), placed beside the house of a chieftain, was used as a test of strength by
the young men who had to lift it to prove their masculinity. Games of skill such as the
bat-and-ball game tsan played in the Valley of Aosta, in which a batter hits the ball as far
as possible into a field where the second team tries to catch it, were also traditionally
reserved for men. Participation by girls since the 1990s represents the recent
transformation of tsan into a modern "traditional sport."
However, even such “typical male” sports as wrestling could in pre-modern times
be practiced by women. Japanese women engaged in sumo wrestling, onna-zumo, as
early as the eighteenth century, but this was exceptional. In Brittany, some women seem
to have participated in jacket wrestling (gouren), but gouren for girls was not created
before the later twentieth century.
More typical were folk competitions, which were especially reserved for women.
Women's foot-races or "smock races" were a typical feature of local events in England
and Scotland from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. There were races for
"respectable" women and races for women from the lower social classes including
Gypsies, immigrant Irish women, and itinerant traders. The corresponding competitions
for men were usually wrestling, cudgeling, stick matches, sack racing, and others, rather
than foot races. Despite the popularity of women's races between 1790 and 1830, they
disappeared and did not become forerunners of modern women’s track and field.
Women’s folk racing has survived in Markgröningen (Württemberg, Germany) in the
form of a race among shepherdesses that dates to the fifteenth century. As a modern
folkloristic event, the competitors maintained the tradition of preventing each other from
winning, thus causing much stumbling and laughing, traits that were characteristic of
European folk culture.
Certain ball and pin games were also played by or even reserved for women. For
example, in England, Shrovetide football pitted married women against unmarried
women, and Shrovetide stoolball was a women’s sport that resembled modern cricket or
baseball. In Aragon and all the North of Spain, women played and still play many
different modalities of skittles, known as bolos de mujeres (bolos de Used, birlas de
Campo, bolos de Fuentes Claras, etc.).
Whereas men’s folk sport could have connotations of warrior training, women’s
sport was nearer to ritual practices – including female shamanism – on one hand and
joking with the human dimension of bodily prowess on the other. Anthropological
interpretations as “fertility rites” should, however, be regarded with critical reservation,
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as they mirror the one-sided view on the female from Western nineteenth century.
Difference, togetherness, parody – the play of gender
A fundamental feature of folk sports was the marking of differences. Just as folk
competitions marked marital status differences by placing teams of married men against
teams of bachelors, they also marked the status differences between men and women.
Among the Sorbs of Germany, men engaged in ritual riding (Stollenreiten) while girls
competed in egg races (Eierlaufen) and other games of agility. Among the Inuit of
Greenland, the drum dance (qilaatersorneq) of both women and men was an important
ritual. But although men and women danced to the same music, women and men used
different rhythms and movements.
While marking differences inside the community, folk sports also contributed to
social cohesion and a sense of togetherness – among women and men, among old and
young people, and among people from different professions. However, there was
considerable variation across cultures in the extent that men and women competed
together. In Swedish folk sports, women participated only with men and did not compete
against women. On the island of Gotland (off the coast of Sweden) there was a special
type of festival, våg, during which teams challenged each other from parish to parish,
with both men's sports and boys-and-girls' competitions. In the latter, girls were normally
given certain advantages. A girl could, for instance, use both hands in the pulling
competition (dra hank) while the boy used one hand only. These Swedish folk sports
contrasted with the English smock races, where competitions between women and men
were rare.
Some folk sports were especially invented to promote togetherness. In Shrovetide
races in Denmark, one boy had to compete with four, six, or up to twelve girls who used
a handkerchief in a sort of relay. The result of the race was not important for the
participants, as the prize (money or goods) would be given to the joint feast, regardless
of, whether is was the boy or the girls who won. More important was the sexual joking
that took place as the girls flirted with the boy to distract him and cause him to stumble.
Flirtation was an important element of folk festivals. Along with dances, the folk
sports contributed to the playful encounter between boys and girls, between men and
women. In societies where rigid segregation of the sexes was the norm, folk sports made
flirtation possible by allowing participants to take a time out from the norm and to run
and capture, to touch or even kiss members of the opposite sex. Many folk games and
dances in northern Europe had a strong erotic component including Shrovetide pageants,
Easter fire (which included dancing around a fire, jumping over a fire – often in couples,
and flirtatious joking), Maypole festivals, Sankt Hans (midsummer night bonfire), and
New Year’s fun. Folk sports were often arranged by so-called youth guilds or "game
rooms" (German Lichtstuben), which placed possible marriage partners together.
Folk sport, however, did not only affirm gender identity, but could also mock the
existing gender roles in the form of parody. In dance and game, mummery and scene
play, men could appear as women, and women and men. Wearing the clothing of the
opposite sex and using body movements that fit the stereotype of "the other sex" appealed
to the spectators’ sense of humor. When the European ruling classes of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries tried to suppress the popular games as part of their attack on folk
culture in general, they used the games’ sexual content as moral arguments for their
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elimination.
Laughter as indicator of folk culture
The popular games and competitions in pre-modern society were rich of laughterprovoking actions, and some of these practices are still known today. Laughter was
connected with certain particular bodily practices as hitting the point, hindering and
tumbling and mock fight, all this related to the grotesque body, the fool, and the carnival.
Laughter is provoked by the games of hitting ‘the point’. In modern throwing
sports, the outcome is measured in centimetres, which is nothing to laugh about.
Measurement does not play any important role in traditional popular games where the
decisive point is hitting a certain target – like in bowling, quoits (casting a horseshoe) and
curling. These games can be “heard” by the intonation of laughter, which accompanies
the hitting of the target, the failing of the target, or a new, unexpected configuration of
the balls.
Similar patterns can be found in running and swimming. The fascination of
popular competitions was not a measurable result, but to touch or to catch someone. In
Brittany, running was practiced as a competition of catching a chicken. And in Portugal,
boys swim out into the water trying to catch a duck. The unpredictable target makes this a
popular game.
Typical for popular games are also the situations of hindering and tumbling.
Tumbling is typical of the movement of the clown – provoking laughter. In
Markgröninger Schäferlauf from Württemberg, the competing “shepherdesses” were
allowed to hinder each other on the track. In contrast, modern sport educates children
from the very beginning not to push each other and not to shove. Typical of the popular
type of race is also the sack-race. The sack as an artificial handicap makes the
participants tumble – and laugh.
In games of balance, people play with imbalance, which includes the probability
to fall. The merriment of falling is a typical pattern in popular games – in contrast to
sport, where the fall – for instance falling down from the high bar of gymnastics – is a
serious mistake.
One can also see a relation between the curved movement of popular racing,
tumbling, and certain forms of fight and mock fighting. This is visible in rowing
tournaments of folk culture. Instead of competing on parallel courses for records like in
sports rowing, the people of folk boating battled from boat to boat and tried to push each
other into the water.
The water tournament as an ironic quarrel is in Danish language called dyst. In
contrast to the serious fight of warriors and to the seriously regulated competition of
modern sport, dyst-fight includes a potential of mocking and laughter. In the Nordic game
“Markus and Lukas”, two fighters stand at two sides of a table, both blindfolded, and
with a soft “sword” in the hand, consisting of a piece of cloth or a rolled newspaper. They
shift calling each other by their names “Markus” and “Lukas” and than hit towards the
other in the direction of the voice. The game is a variation of blind man’s buff – for two
persons. The participants as well as the spectators laugh.
The rich world of pulling – from German Fingerhakeln to tug-of-war – has strong
elements of this mock fight, too. Tug-of-war was one of the few Olympic disciplines,
which were excluded. Serious athletes regarded it as “something of a joke”.
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Fool and carnival
The folk culture of laughter has brought forth a special role, a mask – the fool. The jerk,
clown or tomfool was an important character of popular games and competitions. The
Medieval Hausbuch from the fifteenth century shows a tournament of knights, which is
accompanied by a horse race of peasants; fools underscore the grotesque movement of
this race by among others pulling the horse’s tail. Pieter Bruegel the elder, depicting a
kermes (1559) with its competitions, games and dances, showed the fool in the
foreground, holding children by his hand.
A special character of the foolish type was the Pritschenmeister, a droll or
buffoon playing a central role in German urban shooting matches. He had his name from
the Pritsche, a wooden sword or slapstick, which is also used by Kasperle, the punch of
German puppet folk theatre. The Pritschenmeister hoaxed and teased the bad scorer –
even (or especially) if this was a high-ranking nobleman – presenting him a strange price
of victory. It was a flag made of coarse sack cloth and fixed at a thorny branch – a parody
of honour. The Pritschenmeister became in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a
special class of poets linked to the urban shooting festivities. They held speeches with
“foolish” critical and humoristic undertones.
The fool in popular culture of laughter balanced between the “real fool” who was
a person with mental handicap, and the “artificial fool” who played the role of hoaxing as
a sort of artist. In Danish village festivities up to the twentieth century, a “real” fool could
be bestowed with the title of a leader of festivity. His role for one day balanced between
being mobbed as a handicapped person and being socially integrated into the local
community.
Games were the bodily part of popular festivity, and especially of those which
turned the world upside down, the carnival. Here, the “real fool” would be king, and the
king act as fool. In the ritualised anti-order of the farce and burlesque, the rules of the
church, of aristocratic hierarchy, of the wealthy, and of state authority were turned topsyturvy. The principle of carnival was in high degree bodily. Normally, the body – like the
populace – was ‘down there’. Now for a day, the grotesque body was on the top.
The carnivalism of the game is the context where the “penalty” was not a
punishment like in modern sports, but an important ingredient of the game. Without
“mistake”, there would be no drinking afterwards – thus without “penalty” there would
be no pleasure.
Furthermore, it was not only the winners who would be rewarded, which was
custom in urban shooting events, in aristocratic tournaments and in modern sports. But
the beer for the final feast was given by the victorious side – as in the case of the Cornish
hurling. Turning the social world upside down, making a carnival, this was also a feature
of bodily competition.
During the Middle Ages and up to early modernity, people from the upper classes
joined this world of popular game and festivity, often as patrons, but also as players. In
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, however, they retreated and cultivated their
own courteous festivities, inventing quasi-archaic tournaments, geometrical carrousels,
and horse ballets. From these events, the popular laughter was excluded. Laughter
became a field of class struggle top-down.
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The grotesque body – the human being is not perfect
There is no comprehensive title over the various elements that make up the configuration
of popular laughter in games. But one pattern may have had a more embracing
significance: the laughter at the failure. In popular games, the ridiculous failure of the
other was balanced by the ironic laughter at one’s own failure. Trying to hit the target
means failing the target. Tumbling and mock fight create ironic situations of the
unwanted outcome. The grotesque body is a display of what is un-perfect in human
shape. The fool and the carnival are images of what is going “wrong” in life. All this
gives birth to laughter, which, thus, is linked to a deep recognition of human failure – and
it is excluded by a culture of perfection.
In other words, the human being is not perfect – this was the narrative of the folk
games. This non-perfection was expressed by carnivalistic laughter. In contrast, modern
sport was built up around the expectation, that the human being should be perfect. The
human being should be healthy, strong, fit and well-trained. This was a new concept of
human life – and new understanding of health.
Modern sport against folk sports: Perfection, separation and sameness
Modern sport, as it developed in the Western world since the eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries, was to some extent based on folk sports, but at the same time
marginalized it. Modern sport brought a new sense of discipline and a new set of rules for
social relations. What was folk sport before, became now highly organized perfection in
strictly separated disciplines, which aimed at systematizing results and maintaining
records, thus promoting sameness of rules, procedures, and values. The stopwatch
became an icon of this rationality. Popular festivity was replaced by specialization, and
many old folk sports were abandoned or relegated to folklore.
It was only now that movement culture split up between modern standardized
sport, becoming mainstream, and traditional or popular games surviving in the
“underground” of rural society, lower class, children’s culture and some ethnic cultures.
Another split separated the world of sport from the world of circus, which continued the
central role of the clown from popular culture. In sport and gymnastics, “circus” became
an invective, recalling ideas of the freak shows at fairs.
Workers' sport movements were another field where folk sports persisted or
reappeared. In Danish workers' festivities (Fagenes Fest), domestic servants raced with
buckets and scrubbers, pottery workers walked with piles of plates on their heads,
strongmen and women pulled the rope in the tug-of-war, and people ran obstacle races
while eating cream puffs.
Modern folk sports: Walking, games and festivals
Folk sports in their modern form emerged as a reaction against the specialization of
sports and against the disappearance of the festival atmosphere from sporting events. In
addition, people sought to resist the anonymity of modern life by engaging in physical
activities in community.
Modern folk sports developed in three main stages. The first stage was linked to
the Romantic revival that emerged in early nineteenth century Europe. While so far the
term “folk” had derogatory undertones of plebs and Pöbel, the low and vulgar people, a
new positive understanding of Volk spread all over Europe. Johann Gottfried Herder
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(1774-1803), a German literary and cultural critic, gave impulses to reevaluate and reappropriate folk traditions. The new fascination with "folk" and "popular" culture merged
with ideas of democracy, the idea of peoples’ rights and the quest for national identities,
as in German Turnen, the Slavic Sokol (Falcon) gymnastic movements and the Danish
folkelig gymnastics, which was based on Swedish Ling gymnastics. In some of these
patriotic gymnastic movements, folk games were revived or reconstructed in contrast
against English sport (German Volksturnen and Faustball). In Switzerland, the gymnastic
movement promoted Schwingen, the Alpine form of wrestling, and stone tossing as
Nationalturnen. In Ireland in the 1880s, the Gaelic Athletic Association promoted folk
hurling as a sport of liberation from the British rule and was closely connected with
Republican nationalism. The Icelandic glima wrestling gained similar significance as
“national sport”, promoted by a patriotic youth movement. In Brittany, gouren wrestling
and its organization FALSAB became part of the Breton national movement.
The second stage in the modern development of folk sports began about 1900 and
involved “back to nature” movements and progressive youth movements, some of whose
activities were labeled as "folk." Woodcraft Indians, originally from America, and groups
of Woodcraft Folk turned to nature and used names, ceremonies, and practices of the
Native Americans while also advocating peace and social community. Boy Scouts
competed with this approach, using a more military model. The German Naturfreunde
movement began as a workers' tourist movement, wandering and building shelters for
volkswalkers across the country. The German youth movement Wandervogel developed
outdoor activities in small, self-administered groups of boys and girls. Their members
walked, sang, folk-danced, competed and played games in the green nature.
After 1945, German and Austrian Volkswandern was discovered by soldiers of the
occupation forces, who took it back to the United States. The American Volkssport
Association began to promote noncompetitive volkswalk (volksmarching), volksbike,
volksski, and volksswim, typically as family activities, under the umbrella of the
International Federation of Popular Sports.
Traditional games between counter-cultural innovation and Sport for all
The third stage in the modern emergence of folk sports began in the 1970s. It was
initially linked to New Games and the “new movement culture”, which began in
California. In connection with the movement against the war in Vietnam and with hippie
culture, young people engaged in noncompetitive play and game.
More lasting than this counter-culture was the impact of welfare policies,
promoting “Sport for all” in the name of health and social integration. Popular games
showed to fit well into this concept, as they contrasted the hierarchical and exclusive elite
sport.
Furthermore, the question of ethnic identity gave rise to a new interest in the
popular culture of games and festivities. In several European countries there arose new
initiatives to revive and preserve traditional folk sports. From the 1980s on, folk sports
were more and more organized in national and regional festivals. Among the first to
systematize the surviving traditional games, was the Flemish volkssport (typically urban
games organized by local clubs), Basque competitions of force and Breton folk games.
The Danish traditional games movement began in the 1980s, with links to the
folkelig gymnastic movement and to People’s Academies. The International Sport and
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Culture Association has since 1995 served as an umbrella organization for popular
gymnastics, folk sports, and festivals in about fifty countries. The European Traditional
Sport and Games Association was founded in 2001 as an umbrella organization for folk
sports organizations, which often have a regionalist perspective, especially in France,
Belgium, Spain and Italy. The International Traditional Sports and Games Association
was created in 2009 as an inter-continental organization. Also UNESCO has turned
attention towards traditional sports and games. This happened first during the 1970/80s
on the initiative of some non-aligned nations, but discontinued. With a UNESCO
declaration in Athens 2004, the preservation and promotion of traditional games as
national and regional heritage was set on the agenda again.
New global diffusions and fusions
New was also the spread of folk sports from Third World countries to Western metropolis
– and influences into the inverse direction. Capoeira, a traditional Afro-Brazilian sport,
became popular among young people in European cities such as Amsterdam, Berlin and
Paris. Tai chi and wushu – historically based on Chinese warrior training and magic folk
practices – became now practiced worldwide. The Indonesian martial art pencak silat
became a Western sport, and even Japanese sumo wrestling has appeared in Western
countries. Immigrant cultures (re-)invented new movement forms like the bhangra dance
of South Asians in Britain.
By these diffusions and fusions, on one hand, folk sports were often transformed
after Western model into specialized sports of achievement with tournaments,
bureaucratic organization and controlled production of results. On the other hand, the
diffusion of “exotic” folk sports created also new practices in the Western world, which
were alternative to modern standard sport. And a third effect was, that new activities
developed, which cannot any longer be placed in traditional categories of sport. Bungee
jump is one such innovation, based on a Melanesian folk ritual of “land diving”, the
tower jump of the Bunlap people in Vanuatu.
Conversely, Western practices have also given birth to new folk practices in
Africa, Asia and the Americas. Trobriand cricket became the most well-known example,
transforming a colonial sport into a Melanesian folk festivity of dance, sport, carnival and
gift exchange. Disco dance appeared in China as disike, old people’s disco, which
became especially popular among elderly women. Danish sport development aid
supported local folk culture of dance and festivity, ngoma, in Tanzanian villages, while at
the same time Sukuma drumming appeared in Danish youth culture.
Folk sports and democratic revolutions
Some political implications of modern folk sports showed when the Soviet Union broke
down around 1989/91 under the pressure of democratic movements and ethnic
nationalism. Folk sports, which had been repressed in the Soviet era, were revived in
many parts of the former empire. The Kasakh New Year’s festivity nauryz reappeared
with its dances and games. Mongolians returned in the sign of Genghis Khan to ancient
festivities with nomad equestrianism, belt wrestling, and bow and arrow. Tatars helt their
spring time holiday sabantuy again, with belt wrestling korash or kuresh in its center. The
Czech popular gymnastics of Sokol (“falcon”) were revived as part of Sport for all. In
Poland, a new interest arose around traditional games. The Baltic peoples assembled at
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large song festivals. And Inuit people from Siberia and Alaska met in drum dance and
winter festivity kivgiq.
In post-Franco Spain, too, folk sports accompanied the process of democratic
opening and federalization . In Basque country, Catalonia and on the Canary Islands, folk
sports became active factors in marking regional identity. In August 1992, the Olympic
Games of Barcelona were supplied with a festival of Spanish folk sports, showing forty
activities of force, casting, wrestling and the ball game pelota.
Sportization, pedagogization, folklorization – and Sport for all
However, folk sports in their past and current manifestations were never independent
from mainstream tendencies. They were often subjected to instrumental use, whether for
sportive, educational, or folkloristic and tourist aims.
Sportization: Some tendencies inside folk sports were and are working for their
integration into the systems of competitive sports. Among the so-called Non-Olympic
sports, which hold their own competitions especially in China and Russia, there are many
folk sports. Some of their organizations – as the Tug of War International Federation
(TWIF) – strive for Olympic recognition by transforming classic folk sports like tug-ofwar into a standardized sport of achievement. The Olympic sport system also used folk
sports for the cultural framing of competitive events.
Efforts to sportize folk games were especially made under the logic of state
policy. The Soviet state tried to turn lapta into an international sport, and the Iranian state
tries to promote zoorkhaneh, an athletic male tradition, as Olympic sport. But also the
logic of the market is working. Thus, Basque pelota became an American betting sport as
jai alai.
Pedagogization: Other initiatives have tried to integrate folk sports into school
education. Folk sports are regarded as a soft way of educational sport or as tools for
expressing regional identity in education. As educational instruments, however, the
games tend to loose their connection with people’s life and self-organization. This is for
instance critically discussed inside the milieu of Breton games (FALSAB).
Folklorization: Furthermore, strategies of folklore have been directed towards
folk sports. Folkloristic sports are exhibited in connection with music and festivals, as in
the case of Swiss wrestling schwingen. Traditional games have their place also under the
auspices of Conseil International des Organisations de Festivals de Folklore et d’Arts
Traditionnels. Folklore has sometimes tended to transform folk sports into a sort of living
museum. This could favor the promotion of tourism, but could also weaken the
connection with peoples’ social life.
The exotic appeal of traditional sports has made media more and more interested
in showing folkloristic games. Folk sports serve here as colorful elements of
“postmodern” event culture.
Sport for all: On the margins of mainstream sport, Sport-for-all organizations
have used folk sports for the promotion of a healthy life style. Large folk sports festivals
were arranged by the Trim & Fitness International Sport for All Association. Folk sports
were also on the program of the more gymnastic-oriented International Sport and Culture
Association. Some varieties of bowling games showed useful for the sport of disabled
(boccia) and have worldwide expanded as an activity of elderly (boules, petanque).
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Patterns of folk sports – and the impossible game
Under the impact of state and market – of sport, education and tourism – it has been a
challenge for traditional games to keep and develop their own profile of “tradition” and
“folk” activity. In very different forms, this succeeded for instance for the Scottish
Highland Games, for some cases of English Shrovetide football, for Inuit drum dance and
for some types of folk wrestling.
Though a common formula for folk sports cannot be found, some
phenomenological elements can be underlined:
Folk sports are not based on specialized disciplines and bureaucratically defined
rules, but on festival and meeting in an atmosphere of festivity.
Folk sports are connected with different kinds of cultural activities including
music, group singing, dance, theater, and outdoor experiences.
The aim of folk sports is not to produce top results, but to foster togetherness, to
celebrate diversity and distinction of a community.
In contrast to the rigid standardization of modern Olympic sport, folk sports
highlight both variations among groups and solidarity inside groups. In contrast to the
display of sameness and hierarchy of sport, they make otherness visible.
Folk sports are linked to local, regional, ethnic, social, or national identities and
counteract tendencies of uniformity. They oppose a “folk” view from below to centralism
and colonization from above.
Folk games do not aim at the perfection of the human being, but they play with
the non-perfect nature of the human being. It is in the encounter with one’s own nonperfect body that the carnivalistic laughter of the games explodes.
Folk games have a special relation to what has been called the impossible game.
Many games are impossible to carry through, if one really follows the rule. If the rule of
competition for Inuit mouth pull were implemented strictly – "the stronger mouth wins" –
the players would mutilate each other. If the children’s games of run-and-catch were
implemented according to the rule – “run away as quickly as possible” – the slowest
runner would soon stay behind in tears, and the game would end abruptly. If the process
of play shall continue, this can only happen against the rule, against the production of the
“fair” result of speed or strength. It is in the interest of all that no loser is produced.
Folk games are in modern times often described or even defined by their rules.
This focus is based on a misunderstanding. The rule is not the game. The flow of the
game is different from the production of results. The folk game is what starts beyond the
rule and beyond the striving for perfection.
Henning Eichberg
Further reading
Amador Ramirez, Fernando et al. 1997 (eds.): Luchas, deportes de combate y juegos tradicionales. Madrid:
Gymnos.
Barreau, Jean-Jacques & Guy Jaouen 1998 (eds.): Éclipses et renaissance des jeux populaires. . Karaez,
Brittany: FALSAB, 2nd ed.
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Barreau, Jean-Jacques & Guy Jaouen 2001 (eds.): Les jeux traditionnels en Europe. Plonéour Ronarc’h,
Brittany: FALSAB.
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