Hone, ‘Single-stick and Cudgels’ (1832)

Single-stick and Cudgels. [To Mr. Hone.]

I do not observe that you notice the yearly village sports of Single-stick playing and Cudgelling, in your Year-Book. — You may know, perhaps, that the inhabitants of many of the villages in the vrestern counties, not having a fair or other merry-making to collect a fun-seeking money – spending crowd, and being willing to have one day of mirth in the year, have some time in the summer what are called feasts; when they are generally visited by their friends, whom they treat with the old English fare of beef and plumb pudding, followed by the sports of single-stick playing, cudgelling, or wrestling : and sometimes by those delectable inventions of merry Comus, and mirthful spectacles of the village green, jumping in the sack, grinning through the horse-collar, or the running of blushing damsels for that indispensable article of female dress — the plain English name of which rhymes with a frock.

Single-stick playing is so called to distinguish it from cudgelling, in which two sticks are used : the single-stick player having the left hand tied down, and using only one stick both to defend himself and strike his antagonist. The object of each gamester in this play, as in cudgelling, is to guard himself, and to fetch blood from the other’s head ; whether by taking a little skin from his pericranium, drawing a stream from his nose, or knocking out a few of those early inventions for grinding — the teeth.

They are both sanguine in their hope of victory, and, as many other ambitious fighters have done, they both aim at the crown.

In cudgelling, as the name implies, the weapon is a stout cudgel; and the player defends himself with another having a large hemisphere of wicker-work upon it. This is called thepot, either from its likeness in shape to that kitchen article, or else in commemoration of some ancient warfare, when the “rude forefathers of the hamlet,” being suddenly surrounded with their foes, sallied forth against them, armed with the pot and ladle.

Single-stick playing, and cudgelling, would be more useful to a man as an art of self-defence, if he were sure that his enemy would always use the same mode of fighting : but the worst of it is, if a Somersetshire single-stick player quarrel with a Devonshire wrestler, the latter, not thinking himself bound to crack the stickler’s head by the rules of the game, will probably run in and throw him off his legs, giving such a violent shock to his system that the only use he will be able to make of his stick will be that of hobbling home with it.

W. Barnes

Hone, W (1850). The year book of daily recreation and information : concerning remarkable men and manners, times and seasons, solemnities and merry-makings, antiquities and novelties, on the plan of the every-day book and table book, or everlasting calendar of popular amusements, sports, pastimes, ceremonies, customs, and events, incident to each of the three hundred and sixty-five days, in past and present times: forming a complete history of the year; and a perpetual key to the almanack. London : William Tegg and Co., 85, Queen Street, Cheapside. 27th December 1850. pp.1525-1526. Available online, via Archive.org 1850, and 1832.