[MR] Bowling / skittles--a question

[Terry L. Thompson]

That was Table Top Skittles or "Devil amongst the
tailors".
It also comes in a version with a ball hanging from a
string. Almost always with 9 pins (of various shapes
and sizes). The table top version with the ball on a
string that is swung about to knock over the pins was
recently on an episode of MALCOME IN THE MIDDLE, where
the father Hal found the game and introduces it to
Dewey who turns out to be a natural prodigy at the
game. And even manages to find a Skittles LEAGUE in
his area. (????)
Skittles is an english word and is usually used for
any game in which the object of the game is to knock
over pins. There is no true standardization to
Skittles, As even in England the game varies
drastically from shire to township. 
The shape of the pins from stick, baton and missile
shaped to barrel shaped. Either the use of a larger
KINGPIN in the ranks. As well as the variety of
"cheese"; the object that is bowled, bounced, or
thrown at the pins. These "cheeses" can be balls,
batons, bowls or cheese shaped (think giant hockey
puck with rounded edges). Some of the cheeses can
weigh upto 8 lbs (like a normal bowling ball) and must
be HURLED through the air! Others the object is to
roll an assymetrically shaped cheeze so that it
half-circles the pins and circles around the back side
and strikes the pins from behind (from the thrower's
perpective) Strangely, Almost universally though,
there are 9 pins.
Rules vary from having to bounce the cheese before it
can hit any pins, or must hit the KingPin before
hitting any pin for a score to count, to bouncing it
off of a wall.
The French called it Kayles or quilles and it dates
back to atleast the 14th c.
Historians (and game players) believe it dates back to
a 3rd cen. german game called KAGEL, wherein Germanic
monks would throw stones or sticks at a standing club
called a kagel which represented sins, and the object
was to banish the sins by nocking over the Kagel.
The modern German word for the game of Skittles is
"Kageln"
-Cian

--- DRYW FREED <drywdryw at yahoo.com> wrote:

> While we're talking about variations on games with
> pins, when I was a child in Kentucky, there was a