Board games from the city of Vijayanagara (Hampi ... - Gioco dell'Oca.

P. M ICHAELSEN, ON SOME UNUSUAL TYPES OF STICK DICE 15
The game played with this special dice stick was far from unusual. In the aforementioned
article I have demonstrated that variants of this game have been popular in large
parts of Europe for centuries. A passage in a poem by the Scottish poet William Dunbar
from around 1500-1520: “He playis with totum, and I with nichell” is probably an early
allusion to the game, later known as teetotum or put-and-take in English. (17) 14th and
15th-century French references to pirouelle and pirouette show that this game was known
already in the Middle Ages. (18)
It appears that in all the countries where the ‘put-and-take’ game was played, it was
played with a dice top or spinner, in principle similar to the previously mentioned Sámi
top, but with Latin letters inscribed on its
sides (Fig. 9).
In at least one part of Northzen
Europe another tradition was followed. In
Denmark and Northern Germany, stick
dice with Latin letters were still in use in
the early 20th century. My investigation
of game names found on the index cards
at the two Danish University departments
where Danish dialects are studied, shows
that the dice top or spinner was popular
in most parts of Jutland, Zealand and on
some of the smaller Danish isles, Lolland,
Falster, and Møn. (19)
On the island of Funen the dice stick
was apparently predominant. From
among a dozen descriptions of instruments
used for ‘put-and-take’ games, only
one of them describes the dice top. Dicestick
descriptions are also known from
South Zealand, the island Samsø north of
Funen, from Vendsyssel in North Jutland,
Fig. 9. Dice top (sulletopp) for the game
putti from Jæren, Norway. (Drawing: Alf
Næsheim 2002). Sometimes the I was
replaced by an N (nichts). In Stavanger
this game was called pompi (see
Nordland 1974 and Watne 1990/1991).
and from the Tønder area in the extreme south of Jutland, which is near the Danish-
German border. This tradition was also in use on the North Frisian isles Föhr and
Amrum just south of the same border, in Dittmarschen on the west coast of Holstein,
in Northern Germany, and in Hamburg.
The prismatic, four-sided dice sticks varied in size: the smallest were less than 15
mm thick and 40 mm long, while the largest measured some 25 mm in width and 125
mm in length. The average size was probably approximately 20 by 50 or 60 mm. Latin
letters were cut, written or painted on each side of the stick. Like the daldøsa dice, the
carved letters were sometimes blackened, and the corners could be rounded.
The stick was thrown up into the air, rolled over a table or between the palms of the
hands, or the edge of it was pressed by a finger tip which made it roll over. It was usually
played around a board or on the ground. Even though it was mainly a boy’s game,