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<DIV><SPAN class=930025822-17052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>Thank
you, Max for sending this nice picture of a very fine
dreidel.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=930025822-17052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>I also
remember the 26-sided dice made of serpentine stone, which you showed me at the
BGS colloquium in Marburg a few years ago.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=930025822-17052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>I have
seen other photos of your dice and game piece collection in Erwin Glonnegger:
Das Spiele-Buch.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=930025822-17052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>It
seems that you have an excellent collection.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=930025822-17052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=930025822-17052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>Best
wishes,<BR>Peter Michaelsen.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Tahoma
size=2>-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----<BR><B>Fra:</B> Max Kobbert
[mailto:Max.Kobbert@t-online.de]<BR><B>Sendt:</B> 15-05-2007
22:43<BR><B>Til:</B> Peter Michaelsen<BR><B>Emne:</B> Re: hist-games: Long
Lawrence<BR><BR></FONT></DIV>
<P><FONT face="Courier New" size=2>A picture as a small contribution to the
theme. The piece from my collection is from 19th century, I think.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Courier New" size=2>Max Kobbert</FONT></P>
<P> "Peter Michaelsen" <PMI@KM.DK> schrieb: </P>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Tahoma
size=2>-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----<BR><B>Fra:</B> Peter Michaelsen
<BR><B>Sendt:</B> 14-05-2007 23:40<BR><B>Til:</B> 'Jon at Gothic Green
Oak'<BR><B>Emne:</B> SV: hist-games: Long Lawrence<BR><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030071121-14052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>It
is very nice that so many people are interested in the Long Lawrence
die.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030071121-14052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030071121-14052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>I
wrote about it in my article "On some unusual types of stick dice", BOARD
GAMES STUDIES 6, 2003 (pp.9-24).</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030071121-14052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>This was partially based upon my article "Ponni, niks, alle-halve",
ORD OG SAG 22, Institut for Jysk Sprog- og Kulturforskning, Aarhus
University 2002 (pp.47-61).</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030071121-14052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>Wnen I wrote these articles I did not know Willughby's description,
published in 2003.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030071121-14052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>I
made a photocopy of the pages in Willughby, but can't find them right now.
As far as I remember, a note is telling that the Lang Lawrence was mentioned
already in a poem from 1607. </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030071121-14052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>Prismatic dice sticks and also more or less cubic dice were probably
used in the Middle Ages. Leo van der Heijdt suggested - in his FACE TO FACE
WITH DICE. 5000 years of dice and dicing (Groningen 2002) ,p.103, that the
Long Lawrence was used in the Middle Ages. We have no exact proof, but it
probably was.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030071121-14052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>The put-and-take game is probably referred to by the Scottish poet
William Dunbar in a poem from c.1500-1520: "He playis with totum, and I with
nichell". In the early 18th c. 'totum' is described as "a whirlbone, a kind
of die that is turned about". At that time a new name became usual: 'T
totum' (the letter T, inscribed on one of the sides of the die, was placed
before the word); later in the 18th c. the form was changed into 'tetotum'
and around 1800 into 'teetotum', the current form in English. The original
'totum' was preserved in English dialects. (See OED, 2nd. ed. vol.XVII and
XVIII (teetotum, totum). Se also The Scottish National Dictionary Vol. IX,
(Edinburgh 1974),p.370, and the The English Dialect Dictionary Vol VI
(Oxford 1905), p.203.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030071121-14052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>The word 'totum' is testified in French from 1611. In the mid 17th c.
the form 'toton' appears for the first time, corresponding to the French
pronounciation of the Latin word, and c.100 years later the old way of
spelling it disappears.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030071121-14052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>An
earlier French name for the same object was 'pirouette', first known
evidence is from 1451. A related word with the same meaning: 'pirouelle'
appears in a poem by Guillaume de Machaut from 1364 (see Trésor de la Langue
Francaise vol.13 (Paris 1988), p.419: "pirouette".</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030071121-14052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>Rabelais refers to the same put-and-take game 'pille, nade, jocque,
fore' in his Gargantua II, 11, and I, 22 from 1534.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030071121-14052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>I
think that it is difficult to say, if the medieval Jews borrowed the game
from their non-Jewish neighbours in Europe, or the other way round. The
Hebrew consonants on the four sides of the 'dreidel': nun, gimel, he,
shin suggests, however, that Jiddisch-speaking Jews adopted a German
variant with the letters N (nichts), G (ganz), H (halb), S (stell ein,
Jiddisch: 'shtell').</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030071121-14052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>According to a popular etymology this was interpreted as the first
letters in the Hebrew message 'nes gadol hajah sham' (= a great miracle
happened here).</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030071121-14052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>When I browsed the internet for information about this subject, I did
also find a reference which told that this dice top was known by Jews
in France in the Middle Ages under various Hebrew names. Unfortunately I was
not able to get access to the source referred to in Gilad J. Gevaryahu: <A
href="http://www.shamash.org/listarchives/mail-jewish/volume22/v22n46">www.shamash.org/listarchives/mail-jewish/volume22/v22n46</A>
On that home page there was a reference to an article by Rabbi Dr. Meir
Grunwald in SEFER HA'MOADIM V (1961) p.225-226.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030071121-14052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030071121-14052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>In
my BGS article I make an attempt to compare the special signs or markings on
the sides of the Lang Lawrence with the markings on dice sticks used in some
quite different outdoor games. Prismatic dice sticks with four letters on
the sides seem to have been rather common in Denmark and Northern Germany,
but unknown elsewhere. Perhaps some of you might want to discuss some of my
ideas which I put forward in my article?</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030071121-14052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>I
may tell more about them in my next mail.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030071121-14052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030071121-14052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>Peter Michaelsen.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030071121-14052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030071121-14052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Tahoma
size=2>-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----<BR><B>Fra:</B>
hist-games-bounces@www.pbm.com
[mailto:hist-games-bounces@www.pbm.com]<B>Pĺ vegne af </B>Jon at Gothic
Green Oak<BR><B>Sendt:</B> 14-05-2007 18:14<BR><B>Til:</B>
hist-games@www.pbm.com<BR><B>Emne:</B> hist-games: Long
Lawrence<BR><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>According to Parlett the Long Lawrence was
used for playing Put and Take, which is an earlier game played with a
teetotum - though how much earlier the teetotum is than the Long
Lawrence I do not know (apart from the well known Bruegel reference of
1560). There is also the Jewish game played at Hanukkah with a
dreidel (=teetotum) though again I am unsure of the antiquity of
this. Could Put and Take and the teetotum have originated in the
Jewish communities of medieval Europe and then passed to a broader gaming
public? or is this just wishful thinking....</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>jon</FONT></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT
face="Courier New" size=2> </FONT>
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