{"id":10559,"date":"2022-02-08T17:44:24","date_gmt":"2022-02-08T16:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=199676"},"modified":"2022-02-08T17:46:18","modified_gmt":"2022-02-08T16:46:18","slug":"a-brief-history-of-curling-from-medieval-scotland-to-the-winter-olympics","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/a-brief-history-of-curling-from-medieval-scotland-to-the-winter-olympics\/","title":{"rendered":"A brief history of curling \u2013 from medieval Scotland to the Winter Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>

By Emma Mason\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 08 February 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

Here we chart the history of the so-called \u201cRoarin\u2019 Game\u201d, which Scotland\u2019s national bard, Robert Burns, wrote about in his poetry\u2026 <\/strong><\/p>\n

When was curling first invented?<\/h3>\n

The exact origins of curling remain a mystery, but it was the Scots who first embraced the sport and drew up the early official rules of the game.<\/p>\n

Curling seems to have started out as a fun Scottish pastime of throwing stones over ice, played informally on frozen lochs and ponds in the medieval period. Today, every Olympic curling stone is made from granite hewn from a quarry on the island of Ailsa Craig<\/a> off of Scotland\u2019s Ayrshire Coast, and their size has been standardised. But the earliest curling stones were made from a variety of different stones and came in all shapes and sizes. \u201cPlayers would choose the most useful variation to sneak through a gap on the ice or cover the target, all with the aim of strategising victory,\u201d according to the Beijing 2022<\/a> website. The world\u2019s oldest curling stone dates from 1511 \u00adand can be found today in the collection of the Stirling Smith Art Gallery & Museum.<\/p>\n

The earliest surviving reference to curling, written in Latin, dates from 1541, \u201cwhen notary John McQuin recorded a challenge that occurred in Paisley, Scotland, between John Sclater, a monk from the local abbey, and one Gavin Hamilton,\u201d writes Jeff Wallenfeldt<\/a> for Encyclopaedia Britannica. \u201cApparently Sclater took three practices throws with a stone on the ice, and then the contest was on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paintings by a 16th-century Flemish artist, Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c1525\u00ad\u00ad\u201369) seem to depict \u201can activity similar to curling being played on frozen ponds,\u201d according to the Word Curling Federation. And poets across the ages from the Scottish regions of Kirkcudbrightshire, Renfrewshire and Lanarkshire have celebrated the game in published poems.<\/p>\n

\""'Hunters\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
\u2018Hunters in the Snow\u2019 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. In the lower part of the pond in the background there appear to be several people playing a game that looks like curling. (Photo by Art Media\/Print Collector\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Curling even features in the poetry of Scotland\u2019s national bard, Robert Burns<\/a>. The opening lines of his 1785 poem \u2018The Vision\u2019 read:<\/p>\n

The sun had clos\u2019d the winter day,<\/em><\/p>\n

The Curlers quat their roaring play\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, two stanzas of \u2018Tam Samson\u2019s Elegy\u2019, written by Burns the following year, read:<\/p>\n

When Winter muffles up his cloak,<\/em>And binds the mire like a rock;\nWhen to the loughs the curlers flock,<\/em>Wi\u2019 gleesome speed,<\/em>Wha will they station at the cock?<\/em>Tam Samson\u2019s dead!<\/em><\/p>\n

He was the king of a\u2019 the Core.<\/em>To guard, or draw, or wick a bore,<\/em>Or up the rink like Jehu roar<\/em>In time o\u2019 need;<\/em>But now he lags on Death\u2019s hog-score,<\/em>Tam Samson\u2019s dead!<\/em><\/p>\n

There is even evidence that Burns himself took part in a \u2018bonspiel\u2019 (a curling tournament) in January 1789.<\/p>\n