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	423
	and a few inches long. . . . The players, who usually go in and out by turns each time, after a preliminary series of tippings of the spell with the stick in one hand, and catches of the ball with the other, in the process of calculating the momentum necessary for reach of hand, are also allowed two trial ' rises' in a striking attitude, and distance is reckoned by scores of yards. The long pliable stick, with a loose club end, used in the game, is called the ' tribit' or ' trivit' stick. . . . The trevit is, in fact, the trap itself, and the trevit-stick the stick with which the trap is struck." The tribbit-stick is elsewhere called "primstick," "gelstick," "buckstick," "trippit," and "trevit." Atkinson says that "spell" is O.N., "spill" meaning a play or game, and the probability is that the game is a lineal descendant from the Ball-play of the Old Danes, or Northmen, and Ice­landers. " Spell and knor " is a corruption of " spell a' knor," the play at ball. Nurspel is simply ball-play, therefore which name, taken in connection with the fact that the game is elsewhere called " Spell and Knor," and not " Knor and Spell," is signifi­cant. There is one day in the year, Shrove Tuesday, when the play is customarily practised, though not quite exclusively.— Atkinson's Cleveland Glossary. Easther (Almondbury Glossary) describes it as played with a wooden ball, a spel, and a pommel. Two may play, or two sides. When a player goes in he drives the knor for, say, 100 yards, i.e., five score, and he reckons five. Each person has the same number of strokes previously agreed upon, but gene­rally only one innings. The " spell" is a kind of stage with three or four feet, to drive it into the ground. On the top of this stage is a spring made of steel, containing a cup to receive the " knor," which is about one or two inches in diameter, and is made of holly or box. The spring is kept down by a sneck, which is tapped by the pommel when the knor is intended to be struck. The pommel is thus formed—the driving part is fre­quently of ash-root or owler, in shape like half a sugar-loaf split lengthwise, but only three or four inches long, and the handle is of ash, wrapped with a wax band where held, which is in one hand only. See " Kibel and Nerspel," " Trap Ball," " Trippit and Coit.