Recently on Dartblog, Isaiah Berg mentioned that Dartmouth fraternities/sororities were playing the drinking game, “Tails” (see here). That rocked me back on my heels … as over 50 years ago at Sigma Nu we played a drinking game “Wales Tails” (in order to speed up the inebriation process.) May I assume that the current game is one and the same? To test this theory of tradition persistence I thought I would describe the game we played and see if it is equivalent to what fraternities and sororities are playing today.
The premise of this game was that the Prince of Wales had lost his cut-away tuxedo (his tails) and was trying to find it by accusing others at the table (usually from 4 to 7 others) of taking it. There was a pitcher or two of beer at the table and everyone had a plastic cup that was to be constantly filled with same. One person would be chosen as Prince (usually a senior) and he would begin by saying, “The Prince and [the number of players at the table, not counting the Prince].”
Then, “The Prince of Wales has lost his tails … Wales … tails … [a number] sir!” The number given would be the person being accused and it was the seat number of a person at the table counting counterclockwise from the Prince. This person was to immediately respond, “Nay sir, [and then the number of another person at the table … or ‘Prince’] sir.” This person accused was to respond in kind and this new person would offer up another culprit’s number (or “Prince”), until someone screwed up in answering at which point the loser had to take a slug of beer.
Now this seems simple enough, but there were a number of nuances that went along with this game:
1) The Prince could declare a “tightening round” whereby the loser would have to chug-a-lug his beer instead of just taking a gulp.
2) The Prince could declare a “rotating Prince” whereby the person accused automatically became the Prince and all numbers changed in kind dynamically counterclockwise around the table. This could get quite complicated really fast and pity the poor player who did not have all his faculties due to over imbibing.
3) The person accused could call his own number (or “Prince” if things were rotating) and then respond with a denial and an accusation of another player … or even himself again, etc.
4) The person accused could call another number but simultaneously turn to stare at another player who was not that number. This was called an “elementary head fake.”
This game would often go on until the wee hours of the morning … or the keg tapped out.
11 comments:
Isaiah Berg responds
"I got your message regarding Wale's Tails. We don't play that game here at Dartmouth anymore to my knowledge; what I was referring to were 'Tails as in short for "cocktails". It's a relaxed time to sample a variety of mixed drinks (many experienced bartenders are to be found scattered about the student population) and socialize.
That being said, old traditions are always in need of revival!"
We played that game, hardcore, from when I pledged Theta Chi at Drexel (Philly) in '95 until around 2000 when it fell out of favor to a NICE SLOW GAME OF BEER PONG GFD!
The point of view was always changing in our games, i.e. 'your 2 man is different than my 2 man'
And we had the options of reverse, oscillating, olympic, (nick)name tales, pussy-giz tales (can't say drink, drank, or drunk or its a giz)
GLAD TO HEAR SOMEONE (YOU) remembers it for it's original name! Dumbasses today calling it 'whales tales' are dumbasses.
Dave,
Please update our readers on the rules for reverse, oscillating, olympic, (nick)name tales, and pussy-giz tales (you can omit the last one if it is too dirty.)
what readers? Explain what, they're all pretty self-explanatory. Games usually go clockwise so reverse sets the round to go counter-clockwise, oscillating is just like it says, and olympic removes the 'nay' and 'who' so people just shout numbers, those break down pretty fast.
pussy giz is just wne the last person to get gizzed tries to sneak a 'weak drink' or nonexistent one because they're incredibly drunk and having trouble standing. Also to leave a game you 'giz out,' which you say "gizzin' out" (between Wales Tales rounds) you drink and you walk away.
Yeah. Wow. But I'm in your corner man, I want to know that this game will be recorded properly through the ages so in 200 years when they're sifting through the rubble they can read what we used to do in our free time around the turn of the 21st century. I loved this game (and was awesome at it, was raised to be awesome at it) before it fell out of favor and everyone wanted to play the slightly-less-skilled-and-drastically-more-time-consuming beer pong. You drink in 2 mins in Wales Tales what you drink in 10 in beer pong.
Perhaps we did start off counting clockwise from the Prince ... it's been over 50 years.
This was very popular at my fraternity at Brown in the 90's. We had many variations, including 'anticipation': 3,nay,who,2-who,nay-5,nay,who,4, etc. I feel Beirut has replaced it now... ah well.
Obviously I am late to the party on this but we ABSOLUTELY still play this game in my house at Dartmouth. I'm a current undergrad '12 and to my knowledge we're the only house that still does this. Alums from Sig Nu and Zete come over all the time to play.
Nice to hear that, Trevor! I miss this game, I really do. We used to go to parties at other houses and start games, inevitably some non-Theta Chis would join and we would just destroy them until they had to withdrawal. Also one time at a house party we got 3 or 4 brothers to surround a lone keg on the 2nd floor, put an inverted cup on the tap (we all had full beers) when anyone came upstairs we'd tell them it was kicked, then we shut the door and played Tales (not 'tails) all night on someone else's dime. >:-D
Well I'm mildly annoyed now because I left a somewhat lengthy response to Trevor and when I tried to post it I was redirected to a login page...I'll try to recall...
I miss this game, I really do. (I'm about 80% deaf now due to ototoxic drugs I was inundated with after a horrific (drunken) motorcycle wreck. But I love this game, 'Tales' not tails, as in 'Tales from Wales.' But we used to go to other parties on campus and start playing, others would inevitably join in ('gizzin in') and we would just gang up on them and destroy them.
Also one time we went to some house party (early) and found a tapped keg on ice in a tub on the 2nd floor, we'd fill our cups and replace the inverted cup on the tap so when anyone asked we would tell them it was kicked. Then later we shut the door as the party picked up and we just played Tales all night til the keg was kicked... awesome memories.
Found this searching for correct spelling, as we are having a reunion party in Glencoe, IL. We had arguably one of the best groups in Wales Tales skill, and our game rules was simply this: Prince starts by asking for a count of who is in, response in clockwise order from each player in succession is "1","2",3,4 for the 4 other players, then we start, "Wales Tales prince of Wales, Prince of 4 calling (any number like) 2, person 2 clockwise answers "nay", prince responds "who", answer may be "3", whoever is 3 clockwise from caller answers "nay", until someone mumbles (shit in the mouth), answers with a wrong response like a nay when a number was needed, or is too slow (delay of game). Drink if make a mistake, vote on arguments thumbs up or thumbs down, three mistakes in a row, down your beer. Came from our friends at Colgate, who brought back to Chicago, where we took it to Pike house at Univ of AZ circa 1974. We would like to invite (challenge) any others to a friendly game if you visit Chicago or Tucson. We will be honing our skills this weekend again. We used to have a lively fast paced game where a few tenths of a second was often charged as a delay of game. The votes were always fun too... Don't ever challenge if you have two in a row already, you are sure to lose the vote. Dino
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