In France the game is called Marelle, in Poland Siegen Wulf Myll (She-goat Wolf Mill, or Fight), in Germany and Austria it is called Muhle (the Mill), in Iceland it goes by the name of Mylla, while the Bogas (or native bargees) of South America are said to play it, and on the Amazon it is called Trique, and held to be of Indian origin. In our own country it has different names in different districts, such as Meg Merrylegs, Peg Meryll, Nine Peg o'Merryal, Nine-Pin Miracle, Merry Peg, and Merry Hole. Shakespeare refers to it in "Midsummer Night's Dream" (Act ii., scene 1):-- "The nine-men's morris is filled up with mud; And the quaint mazes in the wanton green, For lack of tread, are undistinguishable." It was played by the shepherds with stones in holes cut in the turf. John Clare, the peasant poet of Northamptonshire, in "The Shepherd Boy" (1835) says:--"Oft we track his haunts .... By nine-peg-morris nicked upon the green." It is also mentioned by Drayton in his "Polyolbion." It was found on an old Roman tile discovered during the excavations at Silchester, and cut upon the steps of the Acropolis at Athens. When visiting the Christiania Museum a few years ago I was shown the great Viking ship that was discovered at Gokstad in 1880. On the oak planks forming the deck of the vessel were found boles and lines marking out the game, the holes being made to receive pegs. While inspecting the ancient oak furniture in the Rijks Museum at Amsterdam I became interested in an old catechumen's settle, and was surprised to find the game diagram cut in the centre of the seat--quite conveniently for surreptitious play. It has been discovered cut in the choir stalls of several of our English cathedrals. In the early eighties it was found scratched upon a stone built into a wall (probably about the date 1200), during the restoration of Hargrave church in Northamptonshire. This stone is now in the Northampton Museum. A similar stone has since been found at Sempringham, Lincolnshire. It is to be seen on an ancient tombstone in the Isle of Man, and painted on old Dutch tiles. And in 1901 a stone was dug out of a gravel pit near Oswestry bearing an undoubted diagram of the game.