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NINE MEN'S MORRIS |
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" ' Nine Men's Morris,' in Gloucestershire called ' Ninepenny Morris,' was," says a correspondent in the Midland Garner, " largely practised by boys and even older people over thirty years ago, but is now, as far as I know, entirely disused. Two persons play. Each must have twelve pegs, or twelve pieces of anything which can be distinguished. The Morris was usually marked on a board or stone with chalk, and consists of twenty-four points. The pegs are put down one at a time alternately upon any point upon the Morris, and the first person who makes a consecutive row of three impounds one of his opponent's pegs. The pegs must only be moved on the lines. The game is continued until one or other of the players has only two pegs left, when the game is won " (1st ser., i. 20). Another correspondent in the same journal (ii. 2) says, "The game was very generally played in the midland counties under the name of ' Merrilpeg' or ' Merelles.' The twelve pieces I have never seen used, though I have often played with nine. We generally used marbles or draught pieces, and not pegs."
The following are the accounts of this game given by the commentators on Shakespeare :—
" In that part of Warwickshire where Shakespeare was educated, and the neighbouring parts of Northamptonshire, the shepherds and other boys dig up the turf with their knives to represent a sort of imperfect chess-board. It consists of a square, sometimes only a foot diameter, sometimes three or four yards. Within this is another square, every side of which is parallel to the external square; and these squares are joined by lines drawn from each corner of both squares, and the middle of each line. One party, or player, has wooden pegs, the other stones, which they move in such a manner as to take up each other's men, as they are called, and the area of the inner square is called the pound, in which the men taken up are impounded. These figures are by the country people called nine men's morris, or merrils; and are so called because each party has nine men. These figures are always cut upon the green turf, or leys as they are called, or upon the grass at the end of ploughed lands, and in rainy seasons never fail to be
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