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HURLING |
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The Lincolnshire game is played by the children walking two and two in a circle round one of their companions, singing. The players then stand facing the child in the centre, and place their hands on their partners' shoulders. After the lines are sung the centre child cries out, " Halt! Shoulder arms! Fire! " at which words each child kisses his partner. If the commander sees any one hesitate, or avoid kissing, he runs forward and takes the defaulter's place, leaving him to fill the middle position.
Similar versions are played at Earls Heaton (Mr. Hardy), Forest of Dean (Miss Matthews), Ellesmere (Burne, Shropshire Folk-lore', p. 574), Derbyshire (Folk-lore Journal, i. 386).
Hurling
A game played with a ball. The players are divided into two equal parties, each of which tries to secure and keep the ball in their possession. The prize is a ball made of cork, covered with silver.—Courtney's West Cornwall Glossary.
In Taylor's Antiquitates Curiosce, p. 144, it is stated :—"The game of hurling consisted in throwing or hurling a ball of wood about three inches in diameter, and covered with plated silver, sometimes gilt. On the ball was frequently a Cornish motto allusive to the game, and signifying that fair play was best. Success depended on catching the ball dexterously when dealt, and conveying it away through all the opposition of the adverse party, or, if that was impossible, to throw it into the hands of a partner, who, in his turn, was to exert his utmost efforts to convey it to his own goal, which was often three or four miles distant from that of his adversaries."
T. Durfey's Collin's Walk through London, 1690, p. 192, says : " Hurling is an ancient sport us'd to this day in the countys of Cornwall and Devon, when once a year the hardy young fellows of each county meet; and a cork ball thinly plated with silver being thrown up between 'em, they run, bustle, and fight for it, to the witty dislocating of many a shrew'd neck, or for the sport of telling how bravely their arms or legs came to |
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