Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/302

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. x. OCT. n, 1902.

the heading 'Trippefc.' May I add to the particulars given by R. B R the following items'? The hard -wood ball was called a " liggy "; its surface was scored with lines for the adherence of whiting, and its white- ness was maintained by carrying it in a bag containing whiting. Latterly a white marble was substituted, but it is still called a " liggy." As the ball sprang from the trippet its coit was given by the "striking implement," which the player swung round overhead. This driver, known as the " buck," has already been accurately described (9 th S. ix. 452). Originally a hazel rod was used for the handle, in Blatter days a stiff cane, and to the end of this the " buck " was spliced, the attachment being secured by a sewing of waxed thread.

In ' Promptorium Parvulorum ' ' Trypet ' is defined Tripula, trita, and in a note Mr. Way suggests the identification of the word with the trippet used in this game, referring to Halliwell under ' Trip (5),' and to the Rev. Jos. Hunter's ' Hallamshire Glos.,' quoted by Halliwell. As Mr. Hunter describes the game played in a somewhat primitive manner it may be worth while to quote him :

" Trip, a hard ball with a small projecting point, made of wood, or stag's horn, or earthenware, used in the game called also trip. These balls are first raised from a drop, that is, a stone placed with a smooth edge at an angle towards the horizon, and then struck with a pummel placed at the end of a flexible rod called the trip stick. The game is almost peculiar to the north of England." Hunter, 'Hal- lamshire Glossary,' 1829, p. 93.

I may add that the game requires skill attainable only after long practice. Boys began to learn it in their earliest years, and juvenile sets of the apparatus were sold in the north of England until quite recently. Trippet and coit is identical in every respect with knurr and spell. R. OLIVER HESLOP.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

A similar game was played by every boy in this part of the Midlands (the Potteries), under the name of "fop," till the shrinkage of open spaces rendered it impracticable The projectile, or " fop," was made of a piece of hawthorn, or holly when obtainable, whittled round by a pocket-knife, about two inches in diameter, and presenting a surface of in- numerable facets. In lieu of a bat a " dog- stick was used, a limber rod about three felt long inserted in a fir - cone - shaped piece of wood called a "dog's head." Each player used his own f op ," and kept an ample sup- ply in water to make them heavy and pre- serve them from splitting. B. D. MOSELEY.

The game which lads played in Derby- shire similar to knurr and spell is called

"shinty" or "shindy." The "knurrs" we used were round knobs knocked off the bare roots of large trees in the woods, chiefly from elms, I believe. These knobs came out of the bark easily with a judicious knock on one side, and, being " hard as flints " and mostly nearly round, were admirable " knurrs." " Shinty," by the way, was generally played in a long lane, the ends being the goals for the opposing sides, the knurr-drivers being hooked sticks. The game required a considerable amount of skm in driving the knurr, and often in the course of three or four hours' play neither side had scored a goal. The game was most exciting.

THOS. RATCLIFFE. Worksop.

"POPPLE" (9 th S. x. 208). In Gavin D9U- glas's verse translation of the ' JEneid,' which was written in 1513, this word occurs several times, in the sense of spurting out or bubbling over. It is used in the passage in which Achsemenides describes the terrors of the Cyclops ('^Eneid,' iii. 623-6) : Vidi egomet duo de numero cum corpora nostro Prensa manu magna medio resupinus in antro Frangeret ad saxum sanieque expersa natarent Limina.

Douglas gives this as follows :

I saw myself, quhen, grufflingis amid his cave,

Twa bodeis of our sort he tuke and raif ;

Intill his hiddins hand thaim thrimbillit and

wrang,

And on the stanis out thair harnis dang, Quhill brane, and ene, and blude all popillit out.

In '^Eneid,' vi. 296-7, the Acheron flowing into the Cocytus is represented as Popland and bullerand furth on athir hand Onto Cochitus all his slik and sand ;

and the boiling cauldron of vii. 464-6 is thus graphically portrayed :

The veschell may no mayr the broth contene, But furth it popUs in the fyre heyr and thair, Quhill wp fleis the black stew in the ayr.

THOMAS BAYNE.

I think Edie Ochiltree speaks of a " pop- pling brook " in Scott's ' Antiquary,' but I have not a copy at hand. The surname Popplewell connects itself with the same word. W. C. B.

In the West Country " popple " is the usual name for " pebble." Newton Poppleford is Newton Pebbleford. OSWALD J. REICHEL.

CECIL RHODES'S ANCESTORS (9 th S. ix. 325, 436, 517). I was lately told by an old gentle- man of eighty-two, who had lived in Islington from birth, that Duncan Terrace is built on the back part of Rhodes's dairy-farm. To this effect Lewis's 'History of Islington,'