Games - Snap-dragon

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	Games - Snap-dragon

Snap-dragon (also known as Flap-dragon, Snapdragon, or Flapdragon) was a parlour game popular from about the 16th to 19th centuries. It was played during the winter, particularly on Christmas Eve. Brandy was heated and placed in a wide shallow bowl; raisins were placed in the brandy which was then set alight. Typically, lights were extinguished or dimmed to increase the eerie effect of the blue flames playing across the liquor. The aim of the game was to pluck the raisins out of the burning brandy and eat them, at the risk of being burnt. Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language (1755) describes it as "a play in which they catch raisins out of burning brandy and, extinguishing them by closing the mouth, eat them". According to an eighteenth-century article in the Tatler magazine, "the wantonness of the thing was to see each other look like a demon, as we burnt ourselves, and snatched out the fruit." Snap-dragon was played in England and the United States (Blain (1912) suggests that in the United States it was played at Halloween instead), but there is insufficient evidence of the practice in Scotland, or other countries.

Meanings

The words snap-dragon and flap-dragon can refer to the game, the raisins used in the game, or the bowl with brandy and raisins. Other senses of flap-dragon are that of something worthless or trivial, as in "A Flap-dragon for your service, Sir!" from William Congreve's The Way of the World (1700), and "a contemptuous term for a Dutchman or German" (OED). In The Winter's Tale, Shakespeare used it as a verb, to describe a moment when a ship at sea is instantly swallowed up by a storm.

Ingredients

The liquid used in Snap-dragon was typically brandy, although similar flammable liquors (such as cognac) could also be used. Traditionally, raisins were the treat to be snatched; William Sandys (1852) specifies Malaga raisins. Other treats, however, could also be used. Of these, almonds were the most common alternative or addition, but currants, candied fruit, figs, grapes, and plums also featured. Salt could also be sprinkled in the bowl (Blain 1912). The low bowl was typically placed in the middle of a table to prevent damage from the inevitable splashes of burning brandy. In one variation a Christmas pudding is placed in the centre of the bowl with raisins around it.

Traditions

There were several traditions surrounding the game of Snap-dragon. Mary F. Blain (1912) describes the belief that the person who snatches the most treats out of the brandy will meet their true love within a year. In another tradition, one of the raisins contains a gold button and becomes 'the lucky raisin'. The person who fishes the raisin out can claim a reward or boon of their choosing. In the short story Master Sandy's Snapdragon by Elbridge S. Brooks, Snap-dragon is played in the royal household of James I of England. Young Prince Charles (later Charles I of England) catches the lucky raisin and, after much prevarication, asks for the freedom of Walter Raleigh.

According to Robert Chambers' Book of Days (1879) the game was accompanied by a chant:

: Here he comes with flaming bowl, : Don't he mean to take his toll, : Snip! Snap! Dragon!

: Take care you don't take too much, : Be not greedy in your clutch, : Snip! Snap! Dragon!

: With his blue and lapping tongue : Many of you will be stung, : Snip! Snap! Dragon!

: For he snaps at all that comes : Snatching at his feast of plums, : Snip! Snap! Dragon!

: But Old Christmas makes him come, : Though he looks so fee! fa! fum! : Snip! Snap! Dragon!

: Don't 'ee fear him but be bold — : Out he goes his flames are cold, : Snip! Snap! Dragon!

Origins and literary references

The first printed references to snap-dragons or flap-dragons are in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost (1594):

: Thou art easier swallowed than a flapdragon.

and Henry IV, Part 2 (1598):

: Because their legs are both of a bigness, and a' : plays at quoits well, and eats conger and fennel, : and drinks off candles' ends for flap-dragons

John Dryden refers to them in his play The Duke of Guise (1683):

: I'll swear him guilty. : I swallow oaths as easy as snap-dragon, : Mock-fire that never burns.

Snap-dragons were also described in Isaac D'Israeli's The Curiosities of Literature (1791–1823). However, at this time it was not a parlour game but a drinking game, with the snap-dragons being "small combustible bodies fired at one end and floated in a glass of liquor, which an experienced toper swallowed unharmed, while yet blazing" (D'Israeli, 1791–1823). Sandys (1852) cites a related variant of Snap-dragon where a lit candle end is placed in a cup of ale or cider; the aim is to quaff the liquor without singeing one's face.

The first reference to Snap-dragon explicitly as a parlour game is in Francis Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1811):

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