This game is played in the same way in Ireland. It is called "Twirl the Trencher," and the players take names of towns or beasts.--(Miss Keane.)
Brogden (_Provincial Words, Lincolnshire_) and Halliwell (_Dictionary_) mention it as "Turn Trencher," a game played at Christmas time. Moor (_Suffolk Words and Phrases_) calls it "Move all."
Turvey, turvey, clothed in black, With silver buttons upon your back; One by one, and two by two, Turn about, and that will do.
--Haverfordwest (_Notes and Queries_, 3rd series, v. 394).
The children marched two and two, in a measured step to a given distance, then turned and marched back again.
"Tut-ball,"[12] as played at a young ladies' school at Shiffnal fifty years ago. The players stood together in their "den," behind a line marked on the ground, all except one, who was "out," and who stood at a distance and threw the ball to them. One of the players in the den then hit back the ball with the palm of the hand, and immediately ran to one of three brickbats, called "tuts," which were set up at equal distances on the ground, in such positions that a player running past them all would describe a complete circle by the time she returned to the den. The player who was "out" tried to catch the ball, and to hit the runner with it while passing from one "tut" to another. If she succeeded in doing so, she took her place in the den, and the other went "out" in her stead. This game is very nearly identical with "rounders."--_Shropshire Folk-lore_, p. 524.
A game at ball, now only played by boys, but half a century ago by adults on Ash Wednesday, believing that unless they did so they would fall sick in harvest time. This is a very ancient game, and was elsewhere called "Stool-ball," indulged in by the clergy as well as laity to avert misfortune.--Ross and Stead's _Holderness Glossary_. The game is not described.
Addy (_Sheffield Glossary_) says this game is the same as "Pize-ball." Halliwell (_Dictionary_) says it is a sort of "Stob-ball Play."
See "Cat and Dog," "Rounders," "Stool Ball."
[12] _Tut_, a prominence, from A. S. _tótian_, whence also E. _tout_, q.v.--W. W. S.
I. The first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me A partridge in a pear-tree.