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66 CHECKSTONE—CHERRY-PIT
This game is supposed to ridicule the political scramble for places on occasion of a change of government, or in the succession.
See "Move All," "Musical Chairs," "Turn the Trencher."
Checkstone
Easther's Almondbury Glossary thus describes this game. A set of checks consists of five cubes, each about half an inch at the edge, and a ball the size of a moderate bagatelle ball: all made of pot. They are called checkstones, and the game is played thus. You throw down the cubes all at once, then toss the ball, and during its being in the air gather up one stone in your right hand and catch the descending ball in the same. Put down the stone and repeat the operation, gathering two stones, then three, then four, till at last you have "summed up" all the five at once, and have succeeded in catching the ball. In case of failure you have to begin all over again.
(b) In Nashe's Lenten Stuff (1599) occurs the following: "Yet towards cock-crowing she caught a little slumber, and then she dreamed that Leander and she were playing at checkstone with pearls in the bottom of the sea."
A game played by children with round small pebbles (Halli-well's Dictionary). It is also mentioned in the early play of Apollo Shroving, 1627, p. 49.
See " Chucks," " Fivestones."
Cherry Odds
A game of "Pitch and Toss" played with cherry-stones (Elworthy's West Somerset Words). Boys always speak of the stones as "ods."
Cherry-pit
"Cherry-pit" is a play wherein they pitch cherry-stones into a little hole. It is noticed in the Pleasant Grove of New Fancies, 1657, and in Herrick's Hesperides. Nares (Glossary) mentions it as still practised with leaden counters called Dumps, or with money. |
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