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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NUR AND SPEL
(Manley and Corringham Glossary) gives " knur," (i) a hard wooden ball, (2) the head. Addy (Sheffield Glossary) says " knur" is a small round ball, less than a billiard ball. It is put into a cup fixed on a spring which, being touched, causes the ball to rise into the air, when it is struck by a trip-stick, a slender stick made broad and flat at one end. The " knur " is struck by the broad part. The game is played on Shrove Tues­day. Brogden (Provincial Words of Lincolnshire) gives it under " Bandy." It is called " Knur, Spell, and Kibble" in S.-W. Lincolnshire.—Cole's Glossary.
The following letter relating to this game is extracted from the Worcestershire Chronicle, September 1847, in Ellis's edition of Brand :—" Before the commons were taken in, the children of the poor had ample space wherein to recreate themselves at cricket, nurry or any other diversion ; but now they are driven from every green spot, and in Bromsgrove here, the nailor boys, from the force of circumstances, have taken possession of the turnpike road to play the before-mentioned games, to the serious inconvenience of the passengers, one of whom, a woman, was yesterday knocked down by a nurr which struck her in the head."
Brockett says of this game, as played in Durham: It is called " Spell and Ore," Teut. " spel," a play or sport; and Germ. " knorr," a knot of wood or ore. The recreation is also called "Buckstick, Spell, and Ore," the buckstick with which the ore is struck being broad at one end like the butt of a gun (North Country Words). In Yorkshire it is " Spell and Nurr," or " Knur," the ore or wooden ball having been, perhaps, ori­ginally the knurl or knot of a tree. The Whitby Glossary also gives this as " Spell and Knor," and says it is known in the South as " Dab and Stick." The author adds, " May not 1 tribbit,' or * trevit,' be a corruption of ' three feet,' the required length of the stick for pliable adaptation ? "
Robinson (Mid- Yorkshire Glossary), under "Spell and Nur," says: " A game played with a wooden ball and a stick fitted at the striking end with a club-shaped piece of wood. The 1 spell' made to receive and spring the ball for the blow at a touch, is a simple contrivance of wood an inch or so in breadth