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130:, 1933). In recent years it survives only at the Edinburgh Academy, where it is used in an annual Hailes match of the Ephors versus the Leavers (or non-Ephors) and in athletics where they run a clacken-and-ball race. Until the 1960s, it was still used in the Junior School for playing Hailes and also in the Senior School by the Ephors as a means of delivering corporal punishment.
162:, and one of the persons, taking a soft elastic ball about the size of a man's fist, tosses it into the air and as it falls strikes it with his palm towards his antagonists. The object of the game is for either party to drive the ball beyond the goal which lies before them, while their opponents do all in their power to prevent this."
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suggest that the rules of the game have changed over the years as well. Players made up rules to suit the environment. In one case, the 'goal' was a flat surface upon which the ball had to be slammed downwards using the clacken. In the Junior School version, goals similar to hockey goals were set up,
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Though it was played in the Junior School of the
Edinburgh Academy until the late 1960s, it had by then long since died out in the Senior School as a regular activity. However, as part of the centenary celebrations of the school in 1924, the Seventh year took on the Ephors in an exhibition match and
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The game as it is now is played annually and uses the entire school front yards. The goals now comprise two white poles set about 10 ft apart and there is a set at either end of the yards; the tennis ball simply has to pass between the two poles for a team to score a point and whoever has the
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Old records suggest that when the dules were fixed at a great distance apart (400 m or so), the winning team was the one that scored the first hail. After that, the game was over. Numbers playing on each team were not fixed and varied from place to place. It may have been that there was not even a
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in 1898 as "a piece of wood about 18 inches long and has a head about 4 inches wide and ½ inch thick; just short of the head, the bat is thinned down to about ¼ inch from back to front, and again the head is thinned off towards the tip to make it easier to raise the ball from the ground."
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most points at the end wins the games. The games has two halves of about 10 minutes each. As it is a 'celebrity' (sixth and seventh-year leavers only) game, there is a lot of off-the-ball fun as well. All players wear
158:, are fixed on, at about the distance of four hundred yards from each other, or as much farther as the players can agree on. The two parties then place themselves in the middle between the two goals, or
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carried an article about traditional games: "The games among the children of
Edinburgh have their periodic returns. At one time nothing is to be seen in the hands of boys but cleckenbrods."
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though without a cross bar. In some cases, these could simply be a pile of coats. In these versions, due to the relatively short distance between the goals, a score would be kept.
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is a
Scottish ball game which dates to the 18th century and achieved its widest popularity in the nineteenth. It has now virtually died out, replaced by football, except at The
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that ran the full width of the playing area. A hail was scored by driving the ball over that line. When it was played with clackens, the ball could be carried on the clacken.
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Unlike games that have now become regulated, the rules of Hailes were loosely applied and varied from town to town. The original game had no goals as we know them today but a
210:, now alas extinct! Less than thirty years ago no High School boy considered his equipment complete unless the wooden clacken hung to his wrist as he went and came".
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this is now an annual event occurring on the last
Wednesday or Tuesday of the Summer Term and is now quite a spectacle which the whole school turns out to watch.
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In James
Trotter's book on the Royal High School, published in 1911, the game is referred to as "the distinctively school game of
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were played in various parts of
Scotland. The latter was a game common in Dumfriesshire. According to Jamieson, "two
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The clacken was used in the game of Hailes, though it had other uses. "All would be armed with
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The picture on the right, which appeared as the frontispiece to an 1829 edition of
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The game just about died out during the 19th century with the rise in interest in
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referred to the goals in several varieties of hand- and football. Games such as
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as "a wooden hand-bat or racquet used by boys at The
Edinburgh Academy and
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Reference to the annual Hailes match on the
Edinburgh Academy web site
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shows Scott's grandson, John Hugh
Lockhart with a clacken and ball at
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and the use of water pistols and water balloons is not ruled out.
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In his poems of 1804, W. Tarras tells in verse of such a game:
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requirement for the same number to play in each team.
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John Hugh
Lockhart at Abbotsford with clacken and ball
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or hitting other boys' heads" (from E. S. Haldane's
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An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language
110:The design of the clacken, as described in the
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199:. It is known to have survived only in the
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70:". It is derived from the Scots word
34:but played with wooden bats known as
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78:, a board and the onomatopoeic word
182:The hails is wun; they warsle hame
169:The hails are set an' on they scud
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302:The Royal High School, Edinburgh
237:Copies of The Edinburgh Academy
138:In the 18th and 19th centuries,
350:Sports originating in Scotland
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278:, Alexander Gardner, Paisley.
189:The best they can for fobbin'
304:, Pitman & Sons, London.
289:Scottish National Dictionary
64:Scottish National Dictionary
203:and the Edinburgh Academy.
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281:Magnusson, Magnus (1974),
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283:The Clacken and the Slate
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300:Trotter, James (1911),
267:Scotland of our Fathers
265:Haldane, E. S. (1933),
128:Scotland of our Fathers
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101:Tales of a Grandfather
62:, is described in the
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260:Blackwood's Magazine
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294:Tarras, W. (1805),
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105:Abbotsford
239:Chronicle
274:(1880),
197:football
144:hail-ba'
120:clackans
36:clackens
254:Sources
208:Clacken
134:History
60:clackan
56:clacken
24:clacken
335:Shinty
291:(1952)
32:shinty
20:Hailes
296:Poems
218:Rules
160:dules
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154:, or
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80:cleck
58:, or
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