Page:Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.djvu/636

528 the other with his best advantage, and to bear his adverse party downe; whereas, whosoever overthroweth his mate, in such sort, as that either his backe, or the one shoulder, and contrary heele do touch the ground, is accounted to give the fall. If he be only endangered, and makes a narrow escape, it is called a foyle."

He then adds: "This pastime also hath his laws, for instance; of taking hold above the girdle—wearing a girdle to take hold by—playing three pulls for trial of the mastery, the fall-giver to be exempted from playing again with the taker, but bound to answer his successor. Silver prizes for this and other activities, were wont to be carried about, by certain circumforanei, or set up at bride-ales, but time or their abuse hath now worn them out of use." Double play was when two who had flung the rest contested at the close for the prize.

If wrestling was declining in Carew's time, it certainly revived in vigour in the reign of Charles II, and continued till the beginning of the nineteenth century, when again it declined, and is now in Devon a thing of the past.

Blackmore has given an excellent description of a Devonshire wrestling match in his early novel of Clara Vaughan.