Quoits: It's Not Horseshoes, Really (English Pub Games Series)

The complete story of English pub games will appear in the March 2012 issue of Games Magazine.

Quite a few traditional pub games involve hurling potentially lethal objects through the air while consuming large quantities of alcohol. Take quoits, for instance. The first thing to remember is that quoits is not horseshoes, even though they look similar. Unlike darts, quoits actually does have a fairly ancient pedigree on English soil, dating at least to the Middle Ages. King Richard II banned it 1388 because the lower classes were playing it rather than working themselves death. Edward III and Henry V also banned the game, with a punishment of six days in prison for violators.

(One curious pattern in English gaming culture is the way certain games are banned from play by the laboring classes, while permitted for the upper classes. This happens over and over again, with almost every pub game banned some point, and many of the laws written to specifically exclude “gentlemen” from the ban.)

The earliest version of quoits involved simply throwing an object at a target on the ground, with victory going to the person nearest the target. The game really took off in the early 19th century with the growth of industrial labor, and the pubs began maintaining quoits greens and organized league play. In 1881, an amateur association created a semi-standard set of rules that was adopted by most of England. Naturally, these new rules were promptly ignored by the Scots and Welsh.

The basic “northern game” of quoits is played with a heavy, round steel disc, open at the center and weighing 5 ¼ pounds. Spikes (called “hobs”) are set 11 yards apart, with tips protruding three inches above a clay bed. A ringer scored two points, while the nearest quoit scored one point.

The Scots and Welsh stuck to their “long game,” which was played at a distance of 25 yards with quoits that could weight upwards of 15 pounds.

When thrown, these rings tend to imbed themselves in the clay, leading to unusual landing configurations and strange leaning positions requiring careful judging by officials. The game has more room for depth and strategy than horseshoes, in part because the flared circular shape allows for various kinds of hand holds with exotic names like The Frenchman, push pot, and face gater.

In Cornwell, people played a version of quoits called “kook,” with the objective being either to throw the ring father than the opponent, or closer to the target. In loggats, another regional variant, people threw smalls logs or bones at a stake planted in the ground, with the winner being whoever hit it or got closest. Henry VIII banned it, perhaps because he wasn’t yet finished with the bones. Hamlet mentions the game as he observes the gravedigger disinterring Yorick, asking, “Did the bones cost no more the breeding but to play at loggats with them?”

Aunt Sally: More Things to Knock Down Without Spilling Your Beer

Aunt Sally was the inspiration for my research into English pub games. The game was featured the British detective series Midsomer Murders, which regularly explores the bizarre festivals and customs of rural England. We couldn't tell what in the world the characters were doing or why, since we'd never seen anything quite like it. A little digging uncovered not only the rules and origins of Aunt Sally, but also the wonderful and weird world of traditional pub gaming. 

The complete story of English pub games will appear in the March 2012 issue of Games Magazine.

Photo from www.joinersarms.com

The Encyclopedia of Traditional British Rural Sports calls the origins of the skittle-like game Aunt Sally “obscure,” but offers several possibilities for its mysterious name. “Sally” is a dialect word for “hare,” and throwing-sticks were sometimes used to hunt hares in the 19th century. A more likely explanation is that “sally” means to pitch forward, and “aunt” is a reference to the vaguely feminine shape of the target. The French name is the far more evocative Wholesale Slaughter (“jeu de massacre”), which is just plan odd.

The modern version involves throwing six sticks 18 inches long and 2 inches round at a target. A pole, four feet tall, is set into the ground, while a fat white skittle with a bulbous head perches on the top. The goal is to knock this doll from its perch, with a point scored each hit. Players throw their 6 sticks in 4 rounds, for a maximum total of 24. It’s actually much harder than it sounds, and a score of 20 points is considered superb.

The game may have evolved out of a cruel bloodsport called “throwing at cocks”. A live chicken was tied to the top of a pole, and people took turns throwing sticks until someone killed it. The “winner” got to take the chicken home for the pot. It was usually played on Shrove Tuesday.

Joseph Strutt, in his 1801 book The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England from the Earliest Period, says that “Upon the abolition of this inhuman custom, the place of living birds was supplied by toys.” The game found its way from fairgrounds and fetes to the pub, where it shed its cruel heritage and became almost respectable as one of the “lawful games on licensed premises.” Local leagues are organized around pubs, and Championships are held in August and September. The game surged in popularity in the 20th century, with the Oxford League alone counting 120 teams, and six other leagues cropping up in pubs around the country.

In his definitive book Played at the Pub, author Arthur Taylor estimates that “come summer, over 2,500 men and woman can be found playing the game, usually on a Thursday night,” and indoors during winter. The popular British TV show Midsomer Murders even featured an Aunt Sally rivalry as a subplot in the episode “Dark Autumn,” which led to a minor resurgence of interest in the game. 

The game actually made it to American shores, and then migrated back to England in a new form around the year 1855. The American version involved throwing balls or batons at doll’s head affixed to a strike. The doll’s head had a pipe extending from it, and the goal was to knock the pipe off without hitting the head. In the game of Nacks, unique to Yorkshire, the target was a peg rather than a doll.

Dwile Flonking: More Fun With Beer

In 1967, an ancient pub game was brought back into the light, complete with the discovery of an old text—the Wavenly Rules of 1585—to bolster its legitimacy. Dwile flonking had been played since the 16th century at least, and now was at last returned to its rightful place among the regular pub games of Suffolk.

Except that it was all hoax. The game was invented in 1967 in an attempt to draw attention to a village fete in Beccles, Suffolk. Creators Andrew Leverett and Bob Devereux created the imaginary “Wavenly Rules” with plenty of pseudo-old-English terms and traditions to give it a veneer of age. Despite these dodgey origins, dwile flonking actually caught on and became an actual tradition. After more than 40 years of continuous play it can be considered “aged” if not “ancient.”

In dwile flonking, a group of festive drunks link arms and dance in a circle to traditional music. At the center of the circle is a bucket of beer. Inside the bucket is a beer-drenched rag and a stick. Outside the bucket is another drunk, called the flonker. The circle begins moving counter-clockwise at the referee’s command of “Here y’is t’gether,” while the flonker turns in the opposite direction. The flonker lifts up the dripping rag with his stick and flings it at the circle, attempting to nail someone with several ounces of warm, flat beer.

Different hits score different points. A head shot (or “wonton”) is worth three points, while a torso hit (or “morther”) is worth two and a leg (or “ripper”) is worth one. A flonker gets two or three tries, but if he misses all three he has to gulp a pot of ale in the time it takes to pass the dwile all the way around the circle. If he can’t finish in time, he looses a point.

The game has plenty of colorful terminology to go with it. The stick is called a “driveller,” or sometimes a “swadger” (provided by a “swadge-coper” sold by the “tardwainer’s nard”). The circle is called a “girter” and the referee is a “jobanowl.” Other people call the whole thing “nurdling” rather than “dwile flonking.” Of course, there is a Waveney Valley Dwile Flonking Association, as well as competitions.

You can watch a Pathe News reel about dwile flonking here, and a more recent video below.

Masskrugstremmen: The Sport of Beer Holding

"Masskrugstremmen" means "beer-stein holding," and it comes from the wonderful land of Bavaria, home of Werner Herzog, the Pope, and 25% of my ancestors. You have to hold a beer extended at arm's length for as long as you can. (Then you get to drink it. Duh.) Legend has it one might man lasted over 20 minutes. Seven feet tall he was, with arms like tree trunks! Went by the name of Homer.

We need more sports like this. Onward to the Olympics!

H/T Sean P. Dailey