Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/198

174 opposite side who seized him, he ran on; if not, he threw the ball away, unless it was wrested from him by the other party; but no person was allowed to kick it. The object of the married men was to hang it, i.e. to put it three times into a small hole in the moor, the goal or limit, on the one hand; that of the bachelors was to drown it, i.e. to dip it three times into a deep place in the river, the limit of [? on] the other. The party who could effect either of these objects won the game. But if neither party won, the ball was cut into equal parts at sunset. In the course of the play, one might always see some scene of violence between the parties; but, as the proverb of that part of the country expresses it, 'All was fair at the Ball of Scone.' This custom is supposed to have had its origin in the days of chivalry. An Italian, it is said, came into that part of the country challenging all the parishes, under a certain penalty in case of declining his challenge. All the parishes declined the challenge except Scone, which beat the foreigner, and in commemoration of this gallant action the game was instituted. Whilst the custom continued, every man in the parish, the gentry not excepted, was obliged to turn out and support the side to which he belonged, and the person who neglected to do his part on that occasion was fined."

Ball-play, as we learn from the Sagas, was a favourite recreation with the ancient Scandinavians. The game is referred to, for instance, in the Egil Saga (Green's Translation, p. 68). In a note on page 202 the editor remarks: "Some points the game has like Rugby football, some like hockey perhaps; Dasent pronounces it 'something between hockey and football. In the Calendars of Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland (Papal Letters), vol. ii., p. 214, there is an allusion to a Churchman playing football. This was in the year 1321. The letter is addressed from Avignon by Pope John XXII. to William de Spalding, canon of Sculdham, of the order of Sempingham, and contains the following passage: "During a game at ball (ad pilam), as he kicked the ball (cum pede), a lay friend of his, also called William, ran against him and wounded himself on a sheathed knife carried by the canon, so severely that he died within six days."

In an article on "Some Ancient Welsh Customs and Furniture," in Archaeologia Cambrensis for 1872 (p. 333), we get some