Vogelspiel

Vogelspiel, also called Hexenspiel, was an historical Bavarian and Austrian card game for a variable number of players, played with a special pack of 32 cards. The names mean game of Bird and game of Witch, after the bird or witch pictured on the highest or lowest card. The game descends from the Italian Cuccu, which in turn came from the French Mecontent, a gambling and children game going back to the early sixteenth century. The pack holds twelve numeral cards and ten pairs of picture cards, among them the Bird, Guard, Cat, Horse and Inn. The earliest surviving packs date from the second half of the eighteenth century, and one was still issued by Piatnik in the 1930s. Players hold a few lives, shown as strokes on a slate, may swap their single card with a neighbour, and lose a life when they hold the lowest card or break the action of a top card. Sources differ on the exact rules, so the Wikipedia article gives the accounts of Karl Adrian in 1909 and of an eighteenth century Austrian rule sheet by Johan Georg Pichler.