ny of these old games have entirely
vanished; others have left their old neighbourhoods, and received a
hearty welcome all over the country. Berkshire and Somersetshire
were the ancestral homes of cudgel-play, quarter-staff, and
single-stick. Skating and pole-leaping were the characteristic
sports of the fen country. Kent and Sussex were famous for their
cricket; the northern counties for their football. Scotland rejoiced
in golf, curling, and tossing the caber; while Cumberland and
Westmoreland, Cornwall and Devon, were noted for their vigorous and
active wrestlers. Curling, tossing the caber[8], and wrestling have
clung to their old homes; but the other sports have wandered far and
wide, and are no longer confined to their native counties.

At Easter the local favourite sport was renewed with zest and
eagerness, and almost everywhere foot-races were run, the prize of
the conqueror being a tansy-cake. Stoolball and barley-brake were
also favourite games in this month, as Poor Robin says in his
_Almanack_ for 1677. Barley-brake seems to have been a very merry
game, in which the ladies took part, and of which we find some very
bright descriptions in the writings of some old English poets. The
only science of the pastime consisted in one couple trying with
"waiting foot and watchful eye" to catch the others and bear them
off as captives.

An old writer thus describes a water tournament, which seems to have
been a popular pastime among the youths of London at Easter--"They
fight battels on the water. A shield is hanged upon a pole (this is
a kind of quintain) fixed in the midst of the stream. A boat is
prepared without oars, to be carried by the violence of the water,
and in the fore-part thereof standeth a young man ready to give
charge upon the shield with his lance. If so be he break his lance
against the shield, and do not fall, he is thought to have performed
a worthy deed. If so be that, without breaking his lance, he runneth
strongly against the shield, down he falleth into the water, for the
boat is violently tossed with the tide; but on each side of the
shield ride two boats furnished with young men, which recover him
that falleth as soon as they may. Upon the bridge, wharves, and
houses by the river-side, stand great numbers to see and laugh
thereat." Stow thus describes the water tournament--"I have seen
also in the summer season, upon the river Thames, some rowed in
wherries, with staves in their hands, flat