CANDLELIT CHRONICLES: HISTORIC HAUNTS

Croquet With Alice_Fantasy and Fact

Today in History: The first football team formed in Sheffield, England. Make up your own sport and tell us how it's played.





I call myself a writer, I've read voraciously all my long life, and I boast of my imagination. So I should be able to think something up, yes? But I admit, this one has me temporarily stumped. Sport? Sport?


Oh, please.





Yes, it is possible to render me speechless.


This prompt just did.





So....since I can't at the moment fantasise a “new” sport, I will discuss a fantasy sport. Thank you. (smile): Croquet as Alice knew it; or, Croquet in ALICE IN WONDERLAND.


First of all, a brief history of the sport “as we know it”:


supposedly originating in 17th century London, played in London's Pall Mall, and called “palle-maille.” Said to have spread almost as fast through the British Empire as the use of tobacco, croquet was also the first sport to practice equality of genders and to allow women to play as well as men. Croquet was played, in the snow, at the South Pole in 2005. It was played once at the 1900 Olympics, but poorly organised, and one of the winners never knew during his lifetime that he had won. Perhaps unfortunately, not enough croquet players exist to make it a contemporary Olympic sport.





Alice must have been accustomed to regular English croquet, as she was an upper-tier child. But Wonderland (naturally) presented something quite different. Lewis Carroll tells us:


“[Alice] had never seen such a curious croquet-ground in her life: it was all ridges and furrows: the croquet balls were live hedgehogs and the mallets live flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double themselves up and stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches.”   Odd to Alice, I am certain; but you know, I'd kind of like to see that. (smile)