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THE ELIZABETHAN PEOPLE

in the end both he and his master were considered to be in league with the evil one; and during an European tour were both burned to death on the charge of sorcery.


Nine Men's Morris: "In that part of Warwickshire where Shakespeare was educated, and in the neighbouring parts of Northamptonshire, the shepherds and other boys dig up the turf with their knives to represent a sort of imperfect chess-board. It consists of a square, sometimes only a foot in diameter, sometimes three or four yards. Within this is another square, every side of which is parallel to the external square, and these squares are joined by lines from each corner of both squares and from the middle of each line. One party or player has wooden pegs, the other stones, which they move in such a manner as to take up each other's men, as they are called, and the area of the inner square is called the pond, in which the men taken up are impounded. These figures are always cut upon the green turf, or leys, as they are called, or upon the grass at the end of ploughed lands, and in rainy seasons never fail to be choked up with mud." (James, Var. Shak., 1821.)


The quintain was originally a military sport whose purpose was to accustom pages and squires