Mumblety-peg
knife-throwing game
Mumblety-peg (also known as mumbley-peg, mumbly-peg,
mumblepeg, mumble-the-peg, mumbledepeg, mumble peg or mumble-de-peg) is an old outdoor children's game played using pocketknives. The term "mumblety-peg" came from the practice of putting a peg of about 2 to 3 in (5 to 8 cm) into the ground. The loser of the game had to take it out with his teeth. When the loser would go to remove the peg, it would sound as if he or she was mumbling.
Overview
In the most basic version of the game, one contestant throws a knife end over end (i.e., tumbling) to stick it as deeply as possible into the ground, after which another player tries to extract it with his or her teeth.
There are many variants of the basic game. One relatively safe version is very similar to H-O-R-S-E basketball. Here, the first player attempts to stick his knife in the ground using some unusual technique, such as behind the back or off his knee. If he is successful, the second player must duplicate the feat. The other player is sometimes given more than one try.
“Mumblety-peg” enters the record as knife-throwing game. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Mumblety-peg, knife-throwing and game can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Mumblety-peg” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Mumblety-peg, knife-throwing and game provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6935360. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mumblety-peg” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.