This game is played on slates by school-children. The accompanying diagram is drawn on the slate, and a certain figure (generally twenty) is agreed upon as “game.” There are two players, one takes noughts [O], the other crosses [X]. The three places drawn on the slate above the diagram are for the players each to put down marks or numbers for the games they win, the centre place being for “Old Nick,” or “Old Tom.” The object of the game is for each player to occupy three contiguous places in a row or line with either noughts or crosses, and to prevent his opponent from doing so. The diagram is of course empty when play begins. One player commences by putting his mark into either of the vacant places he prefers, the other player then places his in another, wherever he thinks he has the best opportunity to prevent his opponent getting a “three,” and at the same time to get a three himself; then the first player plays again, and so on alternately until all the squares are occupied, or until one of the players has a “three” in line. If neither player gets a “three,” the game is won by “Old Nick,” and one is scored to his name. In the diagram the result of the game is shown when won by “Old Nick.” Whichever player first wins a game adds “Old Nick’s” score to his own. In some games “Old Nick” keeps all he wins for himself, and then most frequently wins the game.—London (A. B. Gomme).

See “Corsicrown,” “Kit-Cat-Cannio,” “Nine Men’s Morris.”

Nur and Spel

A boys’ game in Lincolnshire, somewhat similar to “Trap Ball.” It is played with a “kibble,” a “nur,” and a “spell.” By striking the end of the spell with the kibble, the nur, of course, rises into the air, and the art of the game is to strike it with the kibble before it reaches the ground. He who drives it the greatest distance wins the game.—Halliwell’s Dictionary.

Strutt (Sports and Pastimes, p. 109) describes this game as “Northern-spell,” played with a trap, and the ball is stricken with a bat or bludgeon. The contest between the players is simply who shall strike the ball to the greatest distance in a given number of strokes. The length of each stroke is measured before the ball is returned, by means of a cord made fast at one end near the trap, the other being stretched into the field by a person stationed there for that purpose, who adjusts it to the ball wherever it may lie.

In a work entitled the Costumes of Yorkshire this game is described and represented as “Nor and Spell.” The little wooden ball used in this game is in Yorkshire called the “Nor,” and the receptacle in which it is placed the “Spell.” Peacock (Manley and Corringham Glossary) gives “knur,” (1) 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, nurr, 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 ‘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 ’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 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.”

Nuts in May

[Play]

I.

II.

—Penzance (Mrs. Mabbott).

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

—Earls Heaton, Yorks. (Herbert Hardy).

VIII.

IX.

—Symondsbury, Dorsetshire (Folk-lore Journal, vii. 226-7).

(b) The children form in two lines of equal length, facing one another, with sufficient space between the lines to admit of their walking in line backwards and forwards towards and away from each other, as each line sings the verses allotted to it (fig. 1). The first line sings the first, third, and fifth verses, and the opposite line the second and fourth. At the end of the fifth verse a handkerchief or other mark is laid on the ground, and the two children (whose names have been mentioned, and who are as evenly matched as possible), take each other’s right hand and endeavour to pull each other over the handkerchief to their own side (fig. 2). The child who is pulled over the handkerchief becomes the “captured nut,” and joins the side of her capturers. Then the game begins again by the second line singing the first, third, and fifth verses, while advancing to gather or capture the “nuts,” the first line responding with the second and fourth verses, and the same finish as before. Then the first line begins the game, and so on until all the children are in this way matched one against the other.

(c) Other versions have been sent me, with slight variations: Nuts in May, with the verses ending, “On a fine summer morning,” from Lincoln and Nottinghamshire (Miss M. Peacock); “So early in the morning,” Sporle, Norfolk (Miss Matthews); “Six o’clock in the morning,” Nottingham (Miss Wenfield); “On a cold and frosty morning,” East Kirkby, Lincolnshire (Miss K. Maughan); Barnes (A. B. Gomme), Colchester (Miss G. M. Frances). Nuts and May: “On a bright and sunny morning” (Mr. C. C. Bell); “On a cold and frosty morning,” Forest of Dean (Miss Matthews); “Every night and morning,” Gainford, Durham (Miss Edleston); “We’ve picked [Sally Gray] for nuts in May,” “All on a summer’s morning,” Sheffield (Mr. S. O. Addy). A version by Miss Kimber (Newbury, Berks, and Marlborough, Wilts) ends each verse, “Nuts and May.” In other respects these variants are practically the same. Printed versions not given above are Hersham, Surrey (Folk-lore Record, v. 85); Burne’s Shropshire Folk-lore, p. 516; Sulhampstead, Berks (Antiquary, vol. xxvii., Miss E. E. Thoyts); and Dorsetshire, “Gathering nuts away” (Folk-lore Journal, vii. 225). From Longcot, Berks, a version sent me by Miss I. Barclay has no fourth line to the verses.

(d) This game is probably, unless we except “Mulberry Bush,” the most popular and the most widely played of any singing game. It might almost be called universal. This is shown by the fact that there are few counties where it is not known, and also that important variants, either in the words or in the method of playing, are rarely met with. In all the versions which have been sent there are only the following variations in the words, and these are principally in the refrain, or last line of each verse: “On a cold and frosty morning” ends by far the greater number of versions; “On a fine summer’s morning,” “So early in the morning,” “All on a summer’s morning,” “Five o’clock in the morning,” “On a cold and sunny morning,” coming next in number. The Belfast version ends, “May! May! May!” and a Newbury and Marlborough fourth line is simply a repetition of the second, “Nuts in May, nuts in May.”

In the first line of the verse the only important variant seems to be the Symondsbury “Gathering nuts away” and “Gathering nuts to-day.” “Gathering nuts away” also occurs in one version from Newbury (Berks), “Nuts and May” appearing in the larger number after the more usual “Nuts in May.” In only one version is a specific place mentioned for the gathering. This is in the Bocking version, where Galloway Hill is named, in reply to the unusual question, “Where do you gather your nuts in May?” A player is usually gathered for “Nuts in May.” In three or four cases only is this altered to gathering a player’s “nuts away,” which is obviously an alteration to try and make the action coincide exactly with the words. The game is always played in “lines,” and the principal incidents running throughout all the versions are the same, i.e., one player is selected by one line of players from their opponents’ party. The “selected” one is refused by her party unless some one from the opposite side can effect her capture by a contest of strength. In all versions but two or three this contest takes place between the two; in one or two all the players join in the trial of strength. In another instance there appears to be no contest, but the selected player crosses over to the opposite side. Two important incidents occur in the Bocking and Symondsbury versions. In the Bocking game the side which is victorious has the right to begin the next game first: this also occurs in the Barnes version. In Symondsbury, when one child is drawn over the boundary line by one from the opposite side she has to be “crowned” immediately. This is done by the conqueror putting her hand on the captured one’s head. If this is not done at once the captured one is at liberty to return to her own side. In some versions (Shropshire and London) the player who is selected for “Nuts” is always captured by the one sent to fetch her. Some Barnes children also say that this is the proper way to play. When boys and girls play the boys are always sent to “fetch away” the girls. In Sheffield (a version collected by Mr. S. O. Addy) a boy is chosen to fetch the girl away; and in the Earls Heaton version the line runs, “We’ll have a girl for nuts in May.”

(e) There is some analogy in the game to marriage by capture, and to the marriage customs practised at May Day festivals and gatherings. For the evidence for marriage by capture in the game there is no element of love or courtship, though there is the obtaining possession of a member of an opposing party. But it differs from ordinary contest-games in the fact that one party does not wage war against another party for possession of a particular piece of ground, but individual against individual for the possession of an individual. That the player sent to fetch the selected girl is expected to conquer seems to be implied—first, by a choice of a certain player being made to effect the capture; secondly, by the one sent “to fetch” being always successful; and thirdly, the “crowning” in the Symondsbury game. Through all the games I have seen played this idea seems to run, and it exactly accords with the conception of marriage by capture. For examples of the actual survivals in English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish customs of marriage by capture see Gomme’s Folk-lore Relics of Early Village Life, pp. 204-210.

The question is, How does this theory of the origin of the game fit in with the term “Nuts in May”? I attribute this to the gathering by parties of young men of bunches of May at the May festivals and dances, to decorate not only the Maypole, May “kissing-bush,” but the doors of houses. “Knots of May” is a term used by children, meaning bunches of May. Thus, a note by Miss Fowler in the MS. of the games she had collected says, “In Bucks the children speak of ‘knots of May,’ meaning each little bunch of hawthorn blossom.” The gathering of bunches of May by parties of young men and maidens to make the May-bush round which the May Day games were held, and dancing and courting, is mentioned by Wilde (Irish Popular Superstitions, p. 52), the game being “Dance in the Ring.” Holland (Cheshire Glossary) says, “May birches were branches of different kinds of trees fastened over doors of houses and on the chimney on the eve of May Day. They were fastened up by parties of young men who went round for the purpose, and were intended to be symbolical of the character of the inmates.” I remember one May Day in London, when the “May girls” came with a garland and short sticks decorated with green and bunches of flowers, they sang—

and a Miss Spencer, who lived near Hampton (Middlesex), told me that she well remembered the May girls singing the first verse of this carol, using “knots” instead of the more usual word “branch” or “bunch,” and that she knew the small bunch of May blossom by the name of “knots” of May, “bringing in knots of May” being a usual expression of children.

The association of May—whether the month, or the flower, or both—with the game is very strong, the refrain “cold and frosty morning,” “all on a summer’s morning,” “bright summer’s morning,” “so early in the morning,” also being characteristic of the early days of May and spring, and suggests that the whole day from early hours is given up to holiday. The familiar nursery rhyme given by Halliwell—

no doubt also refers to house-to-house visiting of May.

The connection between the May festival and survival in custom of marriage by capture is well illustrated by a passage from Stubbe’s Anatomie of Abuses, p. 148. He says: “Against May Day, Whitsonday, or other time, euery Parishe, Towne and Village assemble themselves together, bothe men women and children, olde and yong, . . . and either goyng all together or diuidyng themselues into companies, they goe some to the Woodes and groves where they spend all the night in plesant pastimes; and in the morning they return bringing with them birch and branches of trees to deck their assemblies withall . . . and then they fall to daunce about it like as the heathen people did. . . . I have heard it credibly reported (and that viva voce) by men of great grauitie and reputation, that of fortie, threescore or a hundred maides going to the wood ouer night, there haue scaresly the third part of them returned home againe undefiled.” Herrick’s Hesperides also describes the festival, and the custom of courting and marriage at the same time.

The tune sung to this game appears to be the same in every version.[Addendum]

END OF VOL. I.

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