Each player selects a Cast or stone to pitch with; on another stone, called the Hob, the Cots and Twys are placed; at some distance Scops are set in the ground. First the players pitch from the Hob to the Scop, and the one who gets nearest goes first. He then pitches at the Hob, and if he knocks off the stakes he has them, provided his Cast is nearer to them than the Hob is; in failure of this, the other player tries. In pitching up, one Cast may rest on another, and if the boy whose stone is underneath can lift it up to knock the other Cast away, it has to remain at the place to which it has been struck; if he does not succeed in doing this, the second player may lift off his Cast and place it by the first. Whoever knocks off the stakes, they go to the boy whose Cast is nearest to them. The Hob and Scop are usually three yards apart. The Cot was a button off the waistcoat or trousers, the Twy one off the coat, and, as its name implies, was equal to two Cots. Formerly, when cash was much more rare than now it is amongst boys, these formed their current coin. The game about 1820 seems to have been chiefly one of tossing, and was played with buttons, then common enough. Now, metal buttons being rare, it is played with pieces of brass or copper of any shape. The expression, “I haven’t a cot,” is sometimes used to signify that a person is without money.—Easther’s Almondbury and Huddersfield Glossary.

See “[Banger],” “[Buttons].”

Course o’ Park

The game of “Course of the Park” has not been described, but is referred to in the following verse:—

“Buff”’s a fine sport,
And so’s “Course o’ Park.”

—The Slighted Maid, 1663, p. 50.

Crab-sowl, Crab-sow

A game played with a bung or ball struck with sticks (Brogden’s Provincial Words, Lincolnshire). This is played on Barnes Common, and is apparently a form of “[Hockey]” (A. B. Gomme).

Crates

The game of “[Nine Holes].” This is the game described by John Jones, M.D., in his book called The Benefit of the Auncient Bathes of Buckstones, 1572, p. 12, as having been played by ladies at Buxton for their amusement in wet weather. See Pegge’s Anonymiana, 1818, p. 126, and Addy’s Sheffield Glossary.