Hunt the Whistle: A Regency Era Prank or Passtime?

Imagine a cozy room of mixed company at a house party or something in Regency England. It is after dark, so the drawing room is lit with candles, and the dimly lit glow leads to this feeling of being hidden from the world at large. It leads to the feeling of secrecy. As the hours of the winter evening pass by, the hostess proposes a variety of entertainments for her guests to keep them busy and having fun. She wouldn’t want to have a boring house party after all. Well, games like little hunts were often the thing to play. These were little parlor games where guests would sit in a circle, and one guest would be in the middle of them. They’d pass an item behind their backs and be in constant motion to try to trick the middle player. The whole goal was for the middle player to guess the person who had the item when they had it. One common variation of this is Hunt the Slipper.

But imagine there was an outcast in the group. Throughout history, people have not been very nice, and often, a group will have fun at the expense of one. In this blog post, I’ll talk about Hunt the Whistle and whether it is a prank or a pastime of the Regency Era.

Why was it popular?

Hunt the Whistle, like other small hunt games or parlor games, was popular because there was a group of people who had little to do, but did not have the entertainment that our current world has to offer. They had to find, shock, gasp, and screen-free entertainment. There were no movies, and you couldn’t pull up a YouTube video for your music, so it was left up to the imagination, and small entertainment ideas passed through time. Hunt the Whistle was one such entertainment. The guests would be sitting in a circle like you would for duck, duck, goose. This allowed the guests to sit very closely. Often, a great deal closer than a normal societal game or pastime allowed in this era of decorum. There would be accidental touching, maybe they’d bump into one another’s legs, or their hands would brush as they pretended to pass the item around the circle and fool the poor person standing in the middle.

Was it a prank?

I am very much of the mind that Pass the Whistle was a devious little prank of this era that was done at the expense of one for the fun and amusement of the rest. Unlike games like Hunt the Slipper, where an actual object was passed round, Hunt the Whistle involved a key or similarly small object. Sometime through the night, it was hooked on a button or something on the back of the person destined to be “it” in the game. Then the rest of the people were gathered in a circle and pretended to pass the item around to have the middle person guess. Normally, the middle person was one of the ladies. The key was attached to a string and would fly around her back as she tried to guess who supposedly had it. This caused a bit of laughter among the other guests to have fooled her, so that she had the key the entire time.

Was it a Pastime?

Well, Hunt the Whistle did indeed pass the time, so technically it could be considered a pastime. Of course, the “it” person in the middle probably thought they were actually playing the game Hunt the Slipper with a different object besides a slipper. I personally think it was a prank. There was also a prank that I read about in a regency romance novel that had the hostess go around and tell everyone an animal sound to say. Then, at the count of 3, everyone would make the sound as loudly as they could. However, only one person in the group was ever told to actually make a sound; the rest were in on the prank and remained silent. Leaving one poor lady once again to look the fool at the expense of the others. Now, this was probably great fun, but perhaps I am feeling a little cynical today, and find it all to be childish and rude.

Conclusion

Hunt the Whistle was not actually played with a whistle, most of the time, but with a small key. The key was attached to the back of a lady’s dress with a button or a string sometime during the evening when she wasn’t expecting it. When the game commenced, the lady was chosen to be in the center. Everyone else sat in a circle around her. They would all pretend to pass something back and forth around the circle behind their backs while she had to guess who had the object. Unfortunately, the object was hanging on her back all along, causing quite a laugh and a stir among the guests at her expense. It is similar to games like Hunt the Slipper, where an actual item is being passed around.