Cornish Hurling

Hone describes hurling as peculiar to Cornwall: a contest between two sides of forty to sixty men, often two parishes, for a wooden ball about three inches across, covered with silver, sometimes gilt, and often bearing the motto Fair play is good play. Whoever caught the ball ran for his own goal, which might be three or four miles off, or threw it to a partner, so the game called for a nimble hand, a quick eye, a swift foot and skill in wrestling. It was once played every year when the bounds of parishes were walked, but so many accidents came of it that it was scarcely played in his day. Hurling the silver ball survives at St Columb and St Ives.