Jedburgh Hand Ba' Game
Jedburgh, Roxburghshire
Fasteneen (Shrove Tuesday)

The Jedburgh Hand Ba' Game is started with the throwing of the ball into the crowd from the Mercat Cross. It is a contest between the Guppies and the Downs, that is between those born north or south of an east-west line through the cross: South is Up and North is Don. Guppies score, or hail, by throwing the ball over the castle wall; Downs by rolling the ball across the Skiprunning Burn. Another way of scoring, though this may be apocryphal, is by cutting the stitching of the ball while it is held ! under water in the River Jed, the Guppies having one stretch, the Downs another. The winners are the side with the most hails scored, and up to fifteen balls have been fought over in the course of a day.

The shops of the town are boarded up for the games, which also used to take place on Candlemas Day, though these have now been abandoned, save for the token throwing of a ball from the Mercat Cross.

Any contest in this part of the border country has its legends, and one is that the ba' game used to be played here with the severed heads of English raiders. In 1704, it had become so violent that the burgh elders put a stop to the kicking of footballs in the streets. The ba' game developed with much smaller balls, made of leather and stuffed with straw and decorated with ribbons. An attempt to stop this new game was made, but overruled in 1848.

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