honest Izaak Walton's time, a shovel-board was probably to be found in every public-house. That shovel-board, in the time of Charles I., was even a royal game, may be ascertained from the inventory of goods taken at Ludlow Castle belonging to that monarch, Oct. 31, 1650. We have not only "the shovell-board roome;" but "one large shovell-board table, seven little joyned formes, one side table, and a court cup-board," were sold to Mr. Bass for the sum of £2 10s.1 SPINNY-WYE Is the name of a game among children at Newcastle-uponTyne. I suspect this is nearly the same with "hide and seek." "I spye," is the usual exclamation at a childish game called Hie, spy, hie.' STOOL-BALL. [AN ancient game at ball, according to Dr. Johnson, where balls are driven from stool to stool. It is thus alluded to in Poor Robin's Almanack for 1740:. "Now milk-maids pails are deckt with flowers, The mackarels come up in shoals, At stool-ball and at barley-break, Wherewith they harmless pastime make."] 1 See the Harl. MS. Brit. Mus. 4898, p. 599. Among the royal goods at Theobald's, in the same volume, p. 440, one billiard-board brought £1 108. TAG. A WRITER in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1738, tells us that "in Queen Mary's reign, tag was all the play; where the lad saves himself by touching of cold iron-by this it was intended to show the severity of the Church of Rome. In later times, this play has been altered amongst children of quality, by touching of gold instead of iron." He adds, "Queen Elizabeth herself is believed to have invented the play I am a Spanish merchant; and Burleigh's children were the first who played at it. In this play, if any one offers to sale what he hath not his hand upon or touches, he forfeits,— meant as an instruction to traders not to give credit to the Spaniards. The play of Commerce succeeded, and was in fashion during all her reign." TAPPIE-TOUSIE. Or this sport among children Dr. Jamieson gives the following account: "One, taking hold of another by the forelock of his hair, says to him, 'Tappie, tappie, tousie, will ye be my man?" If the other answers in the affirmative, the first says, 'Come to me, then, come to me, then,' giving him a smart pull towards him by the lock which he holds in his hand. If the one who is asked answers in the negative, the other gives him a push backwards, saying, 'Gae fra me, then, gae fra me, then.' "The literal meaning of the terms is obvious. The person asked is called tappie tousie, q. dishevelled head, from tap, and tousie, q. V. It may be observed, however, that the SuioGothic tap signifies a lock or tuft of hair. Haertapp, floccus capillorum; Ihre, p. 857. "But the thing that principally deserves our attention is the meaning of this play. Like some other childish sports, it evidently retains a singular vestige of very ancient manners. It indeed represents the mode in which one received another as his bondman. "The thride kind of nativitie, or bondage, is quhen ane frie man, to the end he may have the menteinance of ane great and potent man, randers himself to be his bond-man in his court, be the haire of his forehead; and gif he thereafter withdrawes himselfe, and flees away fra his maister, or denyes to him his nativitie: his maister may prove him to be his bondman, be ane assise, before the justice; challengand him, that he, sic ane day, sic ane yeare, compeirid in his court, and there yeilded himselfe to him to be his slave and bond-man. And quhen any man is adjudged and decerned to be a native or bond-man to any maister; the maister may take him be the nose, and reduce him to his former slaverie.' Quon. Attach. c. lvi. s. 7. "This form of rendering one's self by the hair of the head seems to have had a monkish origin. The heathenish rite of consecrating the hair, or shaving the head, was early adopted among Christians, either as an act of pretended devotion, or when a person dedicated himself to some particular saint, or entered into any religious order. Hence it seems to have been adopted as a civil token of servitude. Thus those who entered into the monastic life were said capillos ponere and per capillos se tradere. In the fifth century Clovis committed himself to St. Germer by the hair of his head: Vit. S. Germer. ap. Carpentier, vo. Capilli. Those who thus devoted themselves were called the servants of God, or of any particular saint. This then being used as a symbol of servitude, we perceive the reason why it came to be viewed as so great an indignity to be laid hold of by the hair. He who did so claimed the person as his property. Therefore, to seize or to drag one by the hair, comprehendere, or trahere per capillos, was accounted an offence equal to that of charging another with falsehood, and even with striking him. The offender, according to the Frisic laws, was fined in two shillings; according to those of Burgundy, also, in two; but if both hands were employed, in four. Leg. Fris. ap. Lindenbrog. Tit. xxii. 8. 64. Leg. Burgund. Tit. v. s. 4. According to the laws of Saxony, the fine amounted to an hundred and twenty shiilings; Leg. Sax. cap. i. s. 7, ibid. Some other statutes made it punishable by death; Du Cange, col. 243." THREAD-MY-NEEDLE. [A GAME in which children stand in a row joining hands, the outer one, still holding his neighbour, runs between the others, &c. It is alluded to in Poor Robin's Almanack for 1738: "The summer quarter follows spring as close as girls do one another, when playing at thread-my-needle, they tread upon each other's heels."] TICK-TACK. IN Hall's Horæ Vacivæ, 1646, p. 149, are the following observations on the game of tick-tack. "Tick-tack sets a man's intentions on their guard. Errors in this and war can be but once amended." See a full account of the game in Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 873. TRAY-TRIP. GROSE says this was an ancient game, like Scotch-hop, played on a pavement marked out with chalk into different compartments. According to Mr. Halliwell, Dictionary, p. 886, it was a game at dice. TROULE-IN-MADAME. IN the Benefit of the Ancient Bathes of Buckstones, compiled by John Jones at the King's Mede, nigh Darby, 1572, 4to. p. 12, we read: "The ladyes, gentle woomen, wyves, and maydes, may in one of the galleries walke; and if the weather bee not aggreeable to theire expectacion, they may have in the ende of a benche eleven holes made, intoo the whiche to trowle pummates, or bowles of leade, bigge, little, or meane, or also of copper, tynne, woode, eyther vyolent or softe, after their owne discretion; the pastyme troule-in-madame is termed." TRUMP. [AN old game at cards. In the French Garden for English Ladies and Gentlewomen, 1621, the titles of the following games occur: "Trompe, dice, tables, lurch, draughts, perforce, pleasant, blowing, queen's game, chesse." There is added: "The maydens did play at purposes, at sales, to thinke, at wonders, at states, at vertues, at answers, so that we could come no sooner," &c. It is also alluded to in the Cobler of Canterburie, 1608: " May not the Cobler of Kent, who hath beene the patron of many good companions, and tost over a paire of cards at trump from morning till night, not to be admitted so far as to find fault with Richard Tarltons Newes out of Purgatorie? Yes; and if he that writ it will not amend the latchet, Ile on with my night-cap and my spectacles, and make him shape the legge righter ere I have done."] TRUNDLING THE HOOP. SHOOTING With bows and arrows, and swimming on bladders, occur among the puerile sports delineated in the illuminations of the curious missal cited by Strutt. The hoop is noticed by Charlotte Smith, in her Rural Walk: To follow sportively the rolling hoop; To watch the sleeping top, with gay delight, Can find it centr'd in the bounding ball!" 1 Paper windmills are seen in the hands of the younger sort of children in Mr. Ives's missal. |