1920] String Figures 77 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 

 Friday, March 12, 1920. 



Sir James Crichton-Browne, M.D. LL.D. F.R.S., 

 Treasurer and Vice-President, in the Chair. 



W. W. Rouse Ball, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. 



String Figures. 



I have chosen as the subject for this lecture String Figures, which 

 I present to you as a world-wide amusement of primitive man, and 

 as being in themselves interesting to most people. In the coarse of 

 the evening you will see how such figures are actually made, but 

 before coming to that I must tell you something of their nature and 

 history. I hope you will bear with me if I introduce them to you in 

 my own way. 



A string figure is usually made by weaving on the fingers a loop 

 of string, about six-and-a-half or seven feet long, so as to produce a 

 pleasing design, often supposed to suggest a familiar object, either at 

 rest or in motion. 



Having taken up the string in some defined way, the subsequent 

 weaving is usually effected either with the aid of another operator, 

 each player in turn taking the string from the other, or by the single 

 player making a series of movements, such as dropping a loop from 

 one finger, transferring a loop from one finger to another, picking up 

 a string with one finger and then returning the finger to its original 

 position carrying the string with it, and so on ; unless I state the 

 contrary it is to be assumed that it is with figures made in the 

 second way that I am concerned to-night. In general, after each 

 step, the hands are separated so as to make the string tight ; 

 and normally the hands are held upright with the fingers pointing 

 upwards and the palms approximately facing one another. [These 

 movements were illustrated by the formation of a string figure.] 

 This is all that is required in most constructions, though inanv other 

 small movements, notably slight rotations of the wrists, while not 

 necessary, give neatness of manipulation and add to the effectiveness 

 of the display. 



These figures, when shown to a few spectators in a room, always 

 prove, as far as my experience goes, interesting alike to young and 

 old ; but their attractiveness, their fascination I might almost say, 

 is not permanent unless people can be induced to construct them for 

 themselves. I can hardly propose— and that is a difficulty inherent 



