Victorians Took their Parlor Games to Dangerous New Heights
Singed fingers and swollen tongues weren’t the only hallmarks of a merry Victorian Christmas. Though it may predate the Victorian Age by some 2,300 years, Blind Man’s Buff (or Blind Man’s Bluff, as it’s more commonly called) was a popular festive parlor game, notwithstanding the often extreme violence with which the Victorians played it. As a contemporary chronicler once bafflingly observed, more than just blindfolding the seeker or trying to verbally disorientate them, the Victorians had no qualms with throwing obstacles in the blind man’s way in an attempt to break arms, legs, or necks.
Of course, not all Victorian parlor games were violent. Charades, Truth or Dare, and a number of other games still played today were popular classics. The Victorians were perhaps more inventive with their forfeits than we are, though. The unfortunate losers of these challenges might, for example, have to make like a statue and allow other members of the group to rearrange their limbs while a defeated gentleman might be made to come up with a dozen compliments for a lady that didn’t use the letter “L” or to navigate the room and give every lady a kiss. For the luckier few.