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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418                          NINE MEN'S MORRIS
choked up with mud" (Farmer). "Nine men's morris is a game still played by the shepherds, cow-keepers, &c., in the midland counties, as follows:—A figure (of squares one within another) is made on the ground by cutting out the turf; and two persons take each nine stones, which they place by turns in the angles, and afterwards move alternately, as at chess or draughts. He who can play three in a straight line may then take off any one of his adversary's, where he pleases, till one, having lost all his men, loses the game " (Alchorne).
The following is the account of this game given by Mr. Douce in the Illustrations of Shakespeare and of Ancie?it Mariners, 1807, i. 184 :—" This game was sometimes called the nine mens merrils from merelles, or mereaux, an ancient French word for the jettons, or counters, with which it was played. The other term, morris, is probably a corruption suggested by the sort of dance which, in the progress of the game, the counters performed. In the French merelles each party had three counters only, which were to be placed in a line in order to win the game. It appears to have been the tremerel mentioned in an old fabliau. See Le Grand, Fabliaux et Contes, ii. 208. Dr. Hyde thinks the morris, or merrils, was known during the time that the Normans continued in posses­sion of England, and that the name was afterwards corrupted into three men's morals, or nine men's morals. If this be true,
the conversion of morrals into morris, a term so very familiar to the country people, was extremely natural. The Doctor adds, that it was likewise called nine-penny or nine-pin miracle, three-penny morris, five-penny morris, nine-penny morris, or three-pin, five-pin, and nine-pin morris, all cor­ruptions of three-pin, &c, merels" (Hyde's Hist. Nederluddi, p. 202). Nares says the simpler plan here represented (fig. 2), which he had also seen cut on small boards, is more like the game than the one referred to in the variorem notes of Shakespeare.
Forby has, " Morris, an ancient game, in very common