Gàidhlig / English
Te-shrianach

Te-shrianach

Posted by Abi on 15th October 2015

We’re having a look at games and te-shrianach is our word of the week. Te-shrianach was a game played on the machair. Each player would mark out a square of ground infront of them, and cut the square into strips or “strianagan.” They would then put a wooden stick in the ground at a certain distance and then the players tried to hit it with stones. If somebody did not hit the stick, they lost one of the “strianagan.” The game was played until nobody had any “strianagan” left apart from the one who outstripped the rest of the players. This game was collected in Swainbost on the Isle of Lewis around 1972.

In a book entitled Empire Games: The British Invention of Twentieth Century Sport, Roger Hutchinson wrote about Frederick Rea, who was the first Catholic head teacher in South Uist since the Reformation. Rea arrived in South Uist in 1889 and Hutchinson notes that there was ‘an antique repertoire of sports and recreations’ on the island, including cluich an tighe (similar to Rounders), speilean (also called cat and bat, bat and trap and trap and ball in other areas), spidean (pitch and toss) and propataireachd (a form of skittles). He also wrote that the girls were fond of dancing and the boys fond of wrestling.

[Meinander, Henrik, The Nordic World: Sport in Society, London, 1998]

Do you have any instructions for these games? Or instructions for any games that were played when you were young? We would be delighted to hear them. Why not get in touch with us through Facebook or Twitter?

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