Ringolevio - Other Variants

Other Variants

In some neighborhoods of New York, the same game was called Ringolario. That's what it was called on Staten Island.

A variation of Ringolevio, which was called Ringolario, reached the suburbs of South Eastern Pennsylvania around 1970. Two or three neighborhood properties (yards) were set to be the boundaries. The front porch of a home was used as the jail. Sneaking through shrubbery around the porch added to the surprise when team members freed their jailed teammates. The game was played at dusk and often lasted long after dark on summer evenings which added to the military nature of the game. Players would sometimes dress in dark clothes to elude capture. The rules required that the captor cry 1-2-3 Ringolario after grabbing or sometimes tackling (on grass) the pursued.

In Northeast Philadelphia, the variation played was called "Freedom." Players were captured by being taken hold of long enough to say "1-2-3 come with me, you're my prisoner." Players were released from the base/jail when a member of their team was able to sneak close enough to touch a team member and cry "Freedom!" at which point all members of the team rush out in a bunch to make it as difficult as possible for the jail-keeper to recapture them. The jail was a railed porch (the railing looking like the bars of a jail and providing a single approach to guard.) In Olney, this variation was much more aptly named, "Spring!"

This game was called Spring, as in Spring out of jail, in some Catholic schoolyards in North Philadelphia during the early 60s and at least through the 80s. "Spring!" is all that needed to be yelled as the pursued team member touched the base to release all his members out of jail by running in uncaptured. At Saint Henry parish, which was located at 5th and Cayuga, the words used by the pursuing team to capture a member of the pursued team was "One, Two, Three Your My Man, no breaksies". The jail was simply a large metal grate on the ground of one end of the schoolyard. The jail was protected from Springing by members standing in front of the grate. In a twist not noted elsewhere, the pursued team had a safe place where they could not be captured by simply holding on to a window grate over a window at the other end of the schoolyard. Also, if a pursued team member was holding on to the safety area and they in turn were holding hands with a team member not touching the safety grid, that team member was also safe because of "Electricity".

At a summer resort in Ulster County ca. 1968-76, the game was called "slip", the call required to secure a capture was "slip one two three", the dentention area was "base", the play area was a two-acre premise, and considerable time was spent debating the rules that would apply, including the permissibility of "base sitting", i.e. "babysitting" as described above. The base was a swingset and each player detained at the base was generally required to be in physical contact with it. As above, the games generally started around dusk and could continue for hours after dark. While rough play, anger or fighting could occasionally occur, weakness with laughter, or sheer fatigue, would often accompany physical contact between players as indicated above.