Cyndi wrote to me asking about The Cat and The Mice Game. Here’s what she wrote:

My 6th grader is doing a school project on Russian children’s games. He has chosen a game we found on a website called “The Cat and The Mice”. Unfortunately, this site did not give any history of the game and we have been unsuccessful so far.

I found the game at www.estcomp.ro “Children’s Folk Games”. It was listed under another game called, “Game The Bear”. It’s called “The Cat and The Mice” and the instructions are:

Number of participants – 5 or more. One person becomes a cat. His eyes are closed. All other persons are mice.
They turn him and say:

They say:
Where do you stand?
He answers:
On the bridge.
They ask:
What are you drinking?
He answers:
The juice
They run away and cry:
Try to find us and catch!!!
They clap, and the cat with closed eyes must catch someone, and caught person become a cat.

I believe this was written by a teacher using English as a second language, so I’m not 100% sure about the instructions. I copied them verbatim from the website, so you could see the difference in grammar. What we need now is where/how the game originated, if anyone is familiar with it.

We spent several hours over the weekend looking on the net and at the local library for information. This is all we’ve been able to find. Any help would be very much appreciated.

Thank you!

Cyndi Maddox

If anyone can help with more information about this game, please comment below.

Thanks!

Lisa