These rotigh-and-readv bone skate were the fd lT ,a(i wonderfully narrow escape
kind first adopted by the English; for Fitz- ,Ic P"eil up that hand-car; rails and a!!,
'Stephen, in his description of amusements i nd sent etn flvm' m the air in all direc
; of the Londoners in his day (temp Henry tions. A low hand-car with rails on it
1L ), tells us that "when that great fen that
washes Moorfichls at the north walls of the
city is frozen over, great companies of
j young men go to sport upon the ice. Some
i stnding as wide as they may, do slide
swiftly; some better practiced on the ice,
bind to their shoes bones, as the legs of
some beasts, and hold stakes in their hands,
headed with sharp iron, which sometimes
they strike against the ice; these men go as
swiftly as doth a bird in the air, or a bolt
frrm . Tl,n i, m. o. t.,
say that some, imitating the fashion of the
tournament would start in full career
asniimt .me another nni.e.1 with noire
... i i i... i
tueji uir-Li, ciciuic tutrix puiea, Bliuea aiiu
strike each other, when one. or both of them
fall, and not without tonic bodily hull."
Sl-ecime ns of these old bone skates are oc
casionally dug up in fenny parts of the
England. There are some in the British
Mu-eum, in the Museum of the Scottish
Antiquaries, and probably in other collec
tions, though perhaps some of the 'finds''
are not nearly as old as Fitzstephen's day,
for there seems to be good evidence that
even in London the primitive lione skate
was nut entlreK nTttfnwhl hv imnllnipnta
of steel at the latter part of last century.
