Tom Tiddler's Ground

Tom Tiddler's ground, also known as Tom Tidler's ground or Tommy Tiddler's ground, is a longstanding children's game. One player, "Tom Tiddler", stands on a heap of stones, gravel, etc. Other players rush onto the heap, crying "Here I am on Tom Tiddler's ground, picking up gold and silver," while Tom tries to capture, or in other versions, expel the invaders.[1] By extension the phrase has come to mean the ground or tenement of a sluggard, or of one easily outwitted; or to mean any place where money is picked up and acquired readily. The essence of the game lives on in more modern versions such as steal the bacon and variants of tag.

In literature

"Tom Tiddler's Ground" is the title of an 1861 short story by Charles Dickens.[2] Celebrated British author M. R. James quotes a passage from this short story as the preface for his "Rats" horror short story published in 1931. The phrase "Tom Tiddler's ground" also appears in Dickens's novels Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield and Dombey and Son.

It is the title of a 1931 poem and it appears in a 1931 anthology of children's poetry edited by Walter de la Mare, who also wrote a short story titled "Miss Duveen".

It's also the title of a 1934 novel by Edward Shanks.

E. F. Benson mentions "Tom Tiddler's ground" in his 1935 novel The Worshipful Lucia.

Nancy Mitford in The Pursuit of Love (1949) writes, "Their life with Uncle Matthew was a sort of perpetual Tom Tiddler's ground."

The phrase is also the name for a piece of waste land in the 1962 children's novel No One Must Know by Barbara Sleigh.

The gold and silver coins in chapter 16 of C. S. Forester's Hornblower and the Atropos are said to be on Tom Tiddler's Ground.

In Agatha Christie's novel, The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side (1962), William Tiddler, a police sergeant who assists Chief Inspector Craddock, is referred to by locals as "Tom Tiddler".

Author Ursula Orange wrote a novel in 1941 titled "Tom Tiddler’s Ground" and describes Tom Tiddler’s ground as a patch in a person’s life that they are not proud of, keep to themselves, and chase others away.

Other uses

"Tom Tiddler's Ground" is a song on the 1970 album Flat Baroque and Berserk by Roy Harper.

Tom Tiddler's ground is also used in modern English as a euphemism for having an uncertain status, for example, "I asked her why her performance review was late and I could tell she was on Tom Tiddler's ground".

See also

References
  1. E. Cobham Brewer (898). "Tom Tidler's Ground". Dictionary of Phrase and Fable – via Bartleby.
  2. Irving, Joseph (1879). ""Mad Lucas" the hermit". The Annals of Our Time from March 20, 1874, to the Occupation of Cyprus. London: Macmillan. p. 3 – via Google Books. The protagonist, "Mr. Mopes", is based on the hermit James Lucas.
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