The conclusion of all is, that Cricket is identical with Club-ball,—a game played in the thirteenth century as single-wicket, and played, if not then, somewhat later as a double-wicket game; that where balls were scarce, a Cat, or bit of wood, as seen in many a village, supplied its place; also that “handyn and handoute” was probably only another name. Fosbroke, in his Dictionary of Antiquities, said, “club-ball was the ancestor of cricket:” he might have said, “club-ball was the old name for cricket, the games being the same.”
The points of difference are not greater than every cricketer can show between the game as now played and that of the last century.
But, lastly, as to the name of Cricket. The bat, which is now straight, is represented in old pictures as crooked, and “cricce” is the simple Saxon word for a crooked stick. The derivation of Billiards from the Norman billart, a cue, or from ball-yard, according to Johnson, also Nine-pins and Trap-ball, are obvious instances of games which derived their names from the implements with which they are played. Now it appears highly probable that the crooked stick used in the game of Bandy might have been gradually adopted, especially when a wicket to be bowled down by a rolling ball superseded the blockhole to be pitched into. In that case the club having given way to the bandy or crooked bat of the last century, the game, which first was named from the club “club-ball,” might afterwards have been named from the bandy or crooked stick “cricket.”
Add to which, the game might have been played in two ways,—sometimes more in the form of Club-ball, sometimes more like Cricket; and the following remarkable passage proves that a term very similar to Cricket was applied to some game as far back as the thirteenth century, the identical date to which we have traced that form of cricket called club-ball and the game of handyn and handoute.
From the Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. lviii. p. 1., A.D. 1788, we extract the following:—
“In the wardrobe account of the 28th year of King Edward the First, A.D. 1300, published in 1787 by the Society of Antiquaries, among the entries of money paid one Mr. John Leek, his chaplain, for the use of his son Prince Edward in playing at different games, is the following:—
“‘Domino Johanni de Leek, capellano Domini Edwardi fil’ ad Creag’ et alios ludos per vices, per manus proprias, 100 s. Apud Westm. 10 die Aprilis, 1305.’”
The writer observes, that the glossaries have been searched in vain for any other name of a pastime but cricket to which the term Creag’ can apply. And why should it not be Cricket? for, we have a singular evidence that, at the same date, Merlin the Magician was a cricketer!
In the romance of “Merlin,” a book in very old French, written about the time of Edward I., is the following:—
“Two of his (Vortiger’s) emissaries fell in with certain children who were playing at cricket.”—Quoted in Dunlop’s “History of Fiction.”