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Hunt the Slipper

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From: A Dictionary of English Folklore
Date: 20000101
Author:JACQUELINE SIMPSON and STEVE ROUD

Hunt the Slipper. A very popular parlour game, particularly at Victorian family Christmas parties. Oliver Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield ((1766), chapter 11) provides a lively description:
the company at this play plant themselves in a ring upon the ground, all except one, whose business it is to catch a shoe, which the company shove about under their hams from one to another, something like a weaver's shuttle. As it is impossible, in this case, for the lady who is up to face all the company at once, the great beauty of the play lies in hitting her a thump with the heel of the shoe ...

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