Saunigl or Saunigeln was a 19th-century Austrian card game of the shedding type in which the last player left with cards was the Saunigel and risked suffering a beating by the first player out. It may be related to modern Fingerkloppe in which losers also receive a physical punishment, albeit on a lesser scale.
The world Saunigel in the Austrian dialect is recorded as early as 1784 and meant "sow hedgehog", [1] [lower-alpha 1] but was also a pejorative term for a "dirty person" as well as a card game in which the last player left holding cards in hand was called the Saunigl. [3]
The game is mentioned during the 19th century in Viennese publications but also in a Carinthian dictionary and dialect dictionary for the region south of the Enns. [4] [3]
The game is recorded as early as 1814 in a Viennese play where a poor poet is likened to a Saunigl player, suggesting the game would have been well known at the time. [5] In Doctor Faust's Mantel (Müller 1819), Fledermaus says "We have work to do, we're playing Saunigl." [6] It is also recorded in the German translation of Jacques Offenbach's operetta Les Deux Aveugles where Jerzabek says he can play Preferance,Mariagel, Saunigl, Black Peter and Macao. Despite losing a large sum in Tarok, he ventures to play again. [7]
In 1870, Saunigeln is described alongside Schanzeln, Zwicken, Brantln, Mauschln and Schmaraggln as a popular card game in southern Germany, played with German-suited cards. [8] [lower-alpha 2]
No detailed description is given, however several sources say that the last player with cards loses and is called the Saunigl. [lower-alpha 3] One source says that the winner, the first player out, beats the loser with a cloth twisted into a whip. [9] Another says the game bears great similarity to Ecarté. [10]
In the 1860 poem The Playing of Cards (Das Kartenspielen) by J. B. Moser, there is the following description of Saunigl: [9]
Bei jenem Spiel, das's Kind, was kaum recht laufen kann, schon kennt, Refrain: Drum glaub ich auch etc. | In that game – which even a child who can barely walk already knows – Refrain: I think so too, etc. |
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