176 ' Notes and Sketches. 



from the sport, on the ground of its barbarity, till long 

 after ; as indeed the tendency of feeling on questions 

 of sport in all times is apt to lie rather the opposite 

 way, due, no doubt, to the fact that participation more 

 or less in the nature of the wild beast is a somewhat 

 general attribute of humanity. 



Cock-fighting continued to be a school sport in the 

 north-east of Scotland, in some cases, well into the 

 present century. In 1818, the boys at one of the 

 schools in Fetteresso parish, in Kincardineshire, who 

 still had their periodical cock-fight, looked down with 

 a sort of contempt on the boys of another school in 

 the same parish where the practice did not then exist. 

 " Ye haena a cock fecht at your skweel, min," one 

 boy would say to another in reference to this state 

 of matters, and implying that something was wanting 

 in the regular routine of a fully efficient and properly 

 equipped educational institution. In the neighbour- 

 ing parish of Drumlithie, cock-fights were held ten 

 years later than the date mentioned. 



With the annual cock-fight went the annual contest 

 at foot-ball. It also took place at Eastern's Even, or, 

 less commonly, at Yule. The author of " Tullochgorum," 

 in his juvenile poem, "The Monymusk Ba'in',"* fixes it 

 at the latter festival. Three entire days were abstracted 

 from the routine of daily labour, and religiously de- 

 voted to Yule observances. The requisite " fordel 

 strae" for the cattle had been carefully provided 

 before-hand, so as no flail need be lifted during Yule. 

 In a Presbyterian community there was no formal 

 religious service of a public sort ; and thus there 

 was abundant time for the " ba'in','' or any other re- 

 creation that might find favour, " sowens" and general 

 feasting, of course, obtaining their own share of atten- 



* The poem in question, which is marked by a good deal of 

 graphic force, is modelled very closely after "Christ's Kirk o' 

 Green," the names of various of the characters, even, being im- 

 ported from that poem. 



