Lines and Squares – A. A. Milne Chronicles the Children’s Game

Most of us, if you say ‘bear’ and ‘AA Milne’, would think of Winnie the Pooh, aka Edward Bear, who seems to be fond of honey and sits halfway up the stairs, along with Christopher Robin. But one poem in particular, Lines and Squares It doesn’t seem like it’s about teddy bears, it’s about real grizzly bears, which seem to be roaming the streets.

But how can you conjure up these bears? Simple, just stand on the cracks in the pavement. (Okay, in America they’re known as sidewalks, but this is an English superstition, okay?) People who stand on corners are called ‘fools’, and understandably, after all, no one wants bears to they eat them

The bears seem to act innocent, as if they are not about to devour the children. But of course they are…

This poem seems to preempt the cruelty of Roald Dahl’s stories where adults are eaten, but of course there was the famous poem recited by Stanley Holloway about a lion eating a boy named Albert. Previously, the Queen of Hearts ordered that people’s heads be cut off in Alice in Wonderland

The actual game goes back a long time, it seems to go back to the ancient belief of not breaking the square, which possibly represented the Earth (which was also believed to have four corners). There is a rhythm that says:

Step on a crack, break your mother’s back. Step on a line, break your mother’s spine.

Recently, the British cartoon show, Charlie and Lola featured this game.