‘The One O’clock Gun Game’
In the UK and Ireland this plant, Ribwort Plantain, is used by children to play various simple games. When I was a kid in Edinburgh we used it for a cute wee game called ‘The 1 o’clock gun’ (after the gun that fires everyday from Edinburgh Castle) - we twisted the stalk around into a kind of noose, quickly pulled it (with the left hand pulling back sharply and the right hand moving forward) and then the head of the stalk would go shooting off.
Piitttt!!
We used to see how far we could get it to go - great fun.
I asked some people about it and found out that the game is unknown in various parts but is played in others. In the West Country of England the same game is called 'cannonballs'.
Another game played with the plant in Scotland and Ireland and possibly also in England is called 'Bishops'. This game is a bit like conkers, in which a child tries to knock off the head of their friend's stalk with their own stalk, via a fast downward thrust.
Several years ago I saw a group of about a dozen of the plants on the edges of Kumamoto University in Japan, and was astonished to see my childhood plant so far from Scotland. "My god! It's the one o'clock gun!" said I. Taking some home I taught my 8 year old son how to play the game -just as my friend had taught me in Edinburgh when I was a child, just as people have been passing on for who knows how many generations. Recently, I discovered a second area, on the fringes of Kumamoto University in Japan that has about 300 plants of it - which is the most I’ve ever seen in one place. So far I’ve only seen it in those two places around the university area and in NO other place in Japan I’ve ever been (despite looking for them!). So, the myth persists that it may have been the Irish-Greek writer Lafcadio Hearn who planted them around the university area, from seeds he got in Ireland, when he worked in Japan in the 1890s.
I hope that is true!
The origin of these games is unknown but thought to date back hundreds of years, possibly thousands.
In the UK and Ireland this plant, Ribwort Plantain, is used by children to play various simple games. When I was a kid in Edinburgh we used it for a cute wee game called ‘The 1 o’clock gun’ (after the gun that fires everyday from Edinburgh Castle) - we twisted the stalk around into a kind of noose, quickly pulled it (with the left hand pulling back sharply and the right hand moving forward) and then the head of the stalk would go shooting off.
Piitttt!!
We used to see how far we could get it to go - great fun.
I asked some people about it and found out that the game is unknown in various parts but is played in others. In the West Country of England the same game is called 'cannonballs'.
Another game played with the plant in Scotland and Ireland and possibly also in England is called 'Bishops'. This game is a bit like conkers, in which a child tries to knock off the head of their friend's stalk with their own stalk, via a fast downward thrust.
Several years ago I saw a group of about a dozen of the plants on the edges of Kumamoto University in Japan, and was astonished to see my childhood plant so far from Scotland. "My god! It's the one o'clock gun!" said I. Taking some home I taught my 8 year old son how to play the game -just as my friend had taught me in Edinburgh when I was a child, just as people have been passing on for who knows how many generations. Recently, I discovered a second area, on the fringes of Kumamoto University in Japan that has about 300 plants of it - which is the most I’ve ever seen in one place. So far I’ve only seen it in those two places around the university area and in NO other place in Japan I’ve ever been (despite looking for them!). So, the myth persists that it may have been the Irish-Greek writer Lafcadio Hearn who planted them around the university area, from seeds he got in Ireland, when he worked in Japan in the 1890s.
I hope that is true!
The origin of these games is unknown but thought to date back hundreds of years, possibly thousands.