Hopscotch courts appear in English records only after 1600
Hopscotch sends a marker into chalked or scratched squares, then demands hopping retrieval without touching lines. Despite Roman-soldier legends, archaeologist Ulrich Schädler finds no solid evidence before the sixteenth century; English “scotch-hop” notes arrive in the late 1600s.
Courts mix linear singles with side-by-side doubles, drawn in dirt or pavement chalk, sometimes permanently painted on schoolyards. Markers—stone, coin, beanbag, or in Scotland and Ireland a polish tin nicknamed piggy—must stick in square without bounce or roll. Miss a square, step a line, or lose balance and the turn ends; first to clear every number wins. Older boys’ variants kicked the marker home instead of picking it up.
Francis Willughby’s Book of Games (compiled 1635–1672) describes Scotch Hopper with tile or lead on a divided floor. The Oxford English Dictionary ties the name to hop plus scotch as an incised line. Regional aliases abound: Yorkshire Hop-Score, Indian Stapu or Kith-Kith, Spanish rayuela, French marelle, Turkish Seksek, Russian klassiki, Bulgarian dama.
Claims of Painted Grey Ware India or Buddhist prohibition lists remain speculative.
Local versions add their own rules. In Germany, Austria and Switzerland the game is Himmel und Hölle, Heaven and Hell, with the top square as Heaven and the one before it Hell. The French escargot, or marelle ronde, follows a spiral: a player who hops to the centre without faults initials a square, may then rest both feet there while rivals must hop over it, and whoever owns the most squares wins. Poland's klasy has no marker, and players call out items of a class, such as colours, while jumping. In Cuba and Puerto Rico 'La Peregrina' treats its squares as rings between Purgatory and Heaven, and Glasgow children of the 1950s and 1960s slid a stone-filled shoe polish tin called a peever.
Source: Hopscotch
