Knappan, a mass ball game, was played at Pwlldu in Pembrokeshire on Low Sunday by as many as fifteen hundred men, parish against parish or county against county. The ball was of hard wood boiled in tallow to make it slippery, and the players went bare except for light breeches, some on horseback and some on foot. Dyer, following Fenton’s Tour through Pembrokeshire, says the game ended in bloodshed and was given up.
Knappan on Low Sunday
7 days after Easter · Pwlldu, Pembrokeshire
No longer kept
the knappan was a ball of some hard wood, of such a size as a man might hold in his hand, and was boiled in tallow to make it slippery.
From Dyer's British Popular Customs, p. 184. Read the original
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