Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 17, 1906.djvu/237

 Collectanea. 223

Each of the players having provided himself with such a stone as is described above, they take them to a stone with a fairly large flat surface generally a fixture. This is the "Table." About six yards from the Table a line is drawn, or marked with stones, or in some other way, called the "Dull." It is decided who is to place his stone on the table, technically to " table the juck." Besides doing this, the player fixed remains beside the Table under the term " Block." These preliminaries being all settled, the others strive, throwing from the dull, to strike Block's juck oiif the table. The first thrower who has knocked the juck off the table, makes a rush for his own stone and then back to the dull, which he must reach before being tigged by Block, or his chances of throwing again in the course of that game are finally disposed of. However, before Block can attempt to tig him he must have replaced his own juck upon the table. Those who have inissed the tabled juck, or even if they have hit it but not knocked it off, leave their stones lying till this occurs ; then all of them who have thrown try to recover their stone and reach the "dull" without being tigged, Block having his choice of more than one to tig. Supposing Block tigs one, he must at once take his juck off the table before the one tigged can put his on it, which he incontinently tries to do, and if the latter is successful both must leave their jucks on the table, there being now two Blocks. If a thrower knocks one of these two jucks off the table and is tigged, according to the rules above, and cannot place in time his juck on the table before his tigger lifts his, there may be even three jucks on the table and three Blocks, making missing altogether the more diflficult. Of course, if Block is successful in all his endeavours he becomes a thrower, and so the game goes on.

Bulges,

Played in the Orkneys, is a game of the same nature, but played by two chosen sides. The side lucky in the toss takes possession of what is called the "Hales," while the "outs," at a distance of eighteen or twenty feet from the Hales, make the " Dulges," that is, a pile of their stones.