The Traditional Children's Games of England Scotland
& Ireland In Dictionary Form - Volume 1

With Tunes(sheet music), Singing-rhymes(lyrics), Methods Of Playing with diagrams and illustrations.

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	9
	NINE MEN'S MORRIS
	the victory. In Northamptonshire a game called " Nine Holes," or " Trunks," is played with a long piece of wood or bridge with nine arches cut in it, each arch being marked with a figure over it, from one to nine, in the following rotation— VII., V., III., I., IX., II., IIII., VI., VIII. Each player has two flattened balls which he aims to bowl edgeways under the arches; he scores the number marked over the arch he bowls through, and he that attains to forty-five first wins the game (Baker's Northamptonsliire Glossary). In Arch. Jouru., xlix. 320, in a paper by Mr. J. T. Micklethwaite, this game is described, and diagrams of the game given which had been found by him cut in a stone bench in the church of Ardeley, Hertfordshire, and elsewhere. He has also seen the game played in London. It is evidently the same game as described by Nares and Moor above. See " Bridgeboard," " Nine Men's Morris." Nine Men's Morris In the East Riding this game is played thus : A flat piece of wood about eight inches square is taken, and on it twenty-four holes are bored by means of a hot skewer or piece of hot iron.
	Each of the two players has nine wooden pegs, which are either coloured or shaped differently, and the object of each player is to get three of his own pegs in a straight line (fig. 1). It is called "Merrils."— Sheffield (S. O. Addy).