Welsh holiday ball games began on Easter Eve and started again once Easter Day was over. Fives was played against a wall, and stool-ball was like cricket without bats, with a stool standing in for the wicket. Peter Roberts, disagreeing with Bourne and Brand that hand-ball belonged to Easter alone, said stool-ball had been a favourite in his memory but was seldom played by 1815.
Fives and stool-ball from Easter Eve
Easter Saturday · Wales
No longer kept
was, in my memory, also a favourite game on holydays, but is now, like many other rural games, I believe, seldom, if ever, played. These amusements generally began on Easter-eve, and were resumed after Easter-day.
From Roberts's Cambrian Popular Antiquities, p. 123. Read the original
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