334 Notes on the Border of Wilts and Hants. 



long- scoop down the side of a hill, reaching from the very top to 

 the very bottom, along which you may walk or drive up from the 

 level at the bottom, by a gradual gentle slope, all the way to the 

 top. The scoop-out may be longer or shorter, wider or narrower, 

 but the essence of it is, that it be a gradually sloping valley. I 

 speak under correction : but that is a description which corresponds 

 with most of the places to which I have observed the name of 

 Combe to be attached. 



Backswording Match. 



It was during my stay at Combe that I was witness to a rustic 

 amusement, once very popular, but of which I have heard nothing 

 for so many years that I fancy it must have nearly died out. If so, 

 it becomes an archseological reminiscence. This was then called 

 a backswording match : the same pastime which in one of his 

 "Spectator^' papers Addison says he saw at Bath in 1703. He 

 describes it as " a ring of cudgel-players, who were breaking one 

 another^s heads in order to make some impression on their mistresses^ 

 hearts.^' I saw it in 18^5, at a revel at Hurstbourne, half-way 

 between Combe and Andover. In the middle of the village, on an 

 open space, a wooden stage was erected, about three feet high from 

 the ground, fenced with ropes to protect the combatants from 

 being thrown or falling off. What the prize at Hurstbourne was, 

 whether a mistress's heart, or a cheese, a new hat, or a purse of 

 money, I do not remember : but it ought to have been something 

 singularly attractive, the Queen of Beauty should have been emi- 

 nently beautiful, the cheese of prime quality, the hat very smart, or 

 the purse very heavy, to induce fellows to stand up and have their 

 heads cracked in the way I saw done for the amusement of a gaping 

 crowd. Of that crowd of gapers I confess with shame that I was 

 one : but at that time of life it was looked upon as fun : and the 

 more so because the combatants themselves seemed to consider it 

 in much the same light. These village gladiators fought by pairs, in 

 turns, and the winner was he who succeeded in breaking most heads, 

 or, in breaking the head of him who had broken most others\ The 



