Balcomie Castle, about 2 m. to the N.E., dates from the 14th century. Here Mary of Guise landed in 1538, a few days before her marriage to James V. in St Andrews cathedral. In the 18th century it passed through the hands of various proprietors and was ultimately shorn of much of its original size and grandeur. The East Neuk is a term applied more particularly to the country round Fife Ness, and more generally to all of the peninsula east of an imaginary line drawn from St Andrews to Elie. For fully half the year the cottages of its villages are damp with the haar, or dense mist, borne on the east wind from the North Sea.
CRAILSHEIM, or Krailsheim, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Württemberg, on the Jagst, a tributary of the Neckar, at the junction of railways to Heilbronn and Fürth. Pop. (1900) 5251. There are two Evangelical churches and a Roman Catholic church, and a handsome town hall, with a tower 225 ft. high. The industrial establishments include extensive tanneries and machine workshops, and there is a brisk trade in cattle and agricultural produce.
Crailsheim was incorporated as a town in 1338, successfully withstood a siege by the forces of several Swabian imperial cities (1379-1380), a feat which is annually celebrated, passed later into the possession of the burgraves of Nuremberg, and came in 1791 to Prussia, in 1806 to Bavaria and 1810 to Württemberg.
CRAIOVA, or Krajova, the capital of the department of Doljiu, Rumania, situated near the left bank of the river Jiu, and on the main Walachian railway from Verciorova to Bucharest. Pop. (1900) 45,438. A branch railway to Calafat facilitates the export trade with Bulgaria. Craiova is the chief commercial town west of Bucharest; the surrounding uplands are very rich in grain, pasturage and vegetable products, and contain extensive forests. The town has rope and carriage factories, and close by is a large tannery, worked by convict labour, and supplying the army. The principal trade is in cattle, cereals, fish, linen, pottery, glue and leather. In the town, which is the headquarters of the First Army Corps, there are military and commercial academies, an appeal court and a chamber of commerce, besides many churches, Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant, with synagogues for the Jews.
Craiova, which occupied the site of the Roman Castra Nova, was formerly the capital of Little Walachia. Its ancient bans or military governors were, next to the princes, the chief dignitaries of Walachia, and the district is still styled the banat of Craiova. Among the holders of this office were Michael the Brave (1593-1601), and several members of the celebrated Bassarab family (q.v.). The bans had the right of coining money stamped with their own effigies, and hence arose the name of bani (centimes). The Rumanian franc, or leu (“lion”), so called from the image it bore, came likewise from Craiova. In 1397 Craiova was the scene of a victory won by Prince Mircea over Bayezid I. sultan of the Turks; and in October 1853, of an engagement between Turks and Russians.
CRAMBO, an old rhyming game which, according to Strutt (Sports and Pastimes), was played as early as the 14th century under the name of the ABC of Aristotle. In the days of the Stuarts it was very popular, and is frequently mentioned in the writings of the time. Thus Congreve’s Love for Love, i. 1, contains the passage, “Get the Maids to Crambo in an Evening, and learn the knack of Rhiming.” Crambo, or capping the rhyme, is now played by one player thinking of a word and telling the others what it rhymes with, the others not naming the actual word they guess but its meaning. Thus one says “I know a word that rhymes with bird.” A second asks “Is it ridiculous?” “No, it is not absurd.” “Is it a part of speech?” “No, it is not a word.” This proceeds until the right word is guessed.