Red rover (also known as forcing the city gates and octopus tag) is an outdoor game played primarily by children on playgrounds. This 19th-century children's group game (requiring around 10 or more players total) is thought to have originated in Britain and then spread to Australia, Canada and the United States.
Røver is a Norwegian word for "pirate", so perhaps the early British were showing bravery by daring the Viking raiders to "come over". The 1829 book titled The Red Rover: A Tale by James Fenimore Cooper describes the exploits of a pirate called "Red Rover".
Read more about Red Rover: Game, Risks, Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words red and/or rover:
““The god has not yet answered to our pity
For the black vision and tangle in her brains,
Nor is there knowing soever in the city
Of the red histories that throbbed in her blue veins.””
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“Old Rover in his moss-greened house
Mumbles a bone, and barks at a mouse.”
—Walter De La Mare (1873–1956)