Lourche or Lurch (French: ''jeu du Lourche'', German: ''Lurz'', ''Lurtsch'' or ''Lurtschspiel'') was a French

board game Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a ...

that was played in the 16th or 17th century. It was played, like

backgammon Backgammon is a two-player board game played with counters and dice on tables boards. It is the most widespread Western member of the large family of tables games, whose ancestors date back nearly 5,000 years to the regions of Mesopotamia an ...

, on a tables board. The rules of the game have been lost, Furetière (1727) describing it simply as a "kind of

trictrac Trictrac is a French board game of skill and chance for two players that is played with dice on a game board similar, but not identical, to that of backgammon. It was "the classic tables game" of France in the way that backgammon is in the Englis ...

game", trictrac being the name given to the board used for tables games. The game is referred to in the English expression 'left in the lurch', parallel to the French ''demeurer lourche'', referring to the hopeless losing position a player of the game could end up in.

History

The game was listed by Rabelais in his work, ''

Gargantua and Pantagruel ''The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel'' (french: La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel) is a pentalogy of novels written in the 16th century by François Rabelais, telling the adventures of two giants, Gargantua ( , ) and his son Pantagru ...

'', in 1534. In 1586, the ''English Courtier and Country Gentleman'' says that "In fowle weather, we send for some honest neighbours, if happely wee bee without wives, alone at home (as seldome we are) and with them we play at Dice and Cards, sorting our selves according to the number of Players, and their skill, some in Ticktacke, some Lurche, some to Irish game, or Dublets." Shakespeare also alludes to Lourche, both in

Coriolanus ''Coriolanus'' ( or ) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1605 and 1608. The play is based on the life of the legendary Roman leader Caius Marcius Coriolanus. Shakespeare worked on it during the same ye ...

and the Merry Wives of Windsor. Addison (1892) notes that the game is also recorded as Ourche which "suggests that ''lourche'' stands for ''l'ourche'', the initial 'l' being merely the definite article," and that ''ourche'' may have meant the 'pool' i.e. the pot into which the stakes were placed and thus may have an origin in the Latin ''urceus'', a "pitcher" or "vase". Godefroy (1888) confirms that the game was known in French as ''Ourche'' and distinguished from

Trictrac Trictrac is a French board game of skill and chance for two players that is played with dice on a game board similar, but not identical, to that of backgammon. It was "the classic tables game" of France in the way that backgammon is in the Englis ...

Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The ''Oxford D ...

, citing Skinner, says that Lurch derives from l'Ourche, "a game of draughts much used among the Dutch", and that l'Ourche in turn comes from the Latin ''orca'', "box" or "corner".Johnson (1765), "Lurch".

References

Literature

* Addison, Joseph (1892)
"Rural Manners"
in ''Selections from The Spectator'', London/NY: Macmillan, pp. 177–179. * Brand, John and William Carew Hazlitt (1870)
''Customs and Ceremonies''
London: John Russell Smith. * Furetière, Antoine, Abbé de Chalivoi (1727). ''Dictionnaire Universel''. Vol. 3 (L–P). * Godefroy, Frédéric (1888). ''Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe Siècle''. Vol. 5 (Liste–Parsomme). Paris: Vieweg. * Grimm, Jacob and

Wilhelm Grimm Wilhelm Carl Grimm (also Karl; 24 February 178616 December 1859) was a German author and anthropologist, and the younger brother of Jacob Grimm, of the literary duo the Brothers Grimm. Life and work Wilhelm was born in February 1786 in Hanau, i ...

(1885). ''Deutsches Wörterbuch''. Vol. 6. Leipzig: S. Hirzel. * Irving, Henry and Frank A. Marshall, eds. (1889). ''The Works of William Shakespeare''. Vol. VI. NY: Scribner & Welford. *

Johnson, Samuel Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The ''Oxford D ...

(1765). ''A Dictionary of the English Language''. Vol. 2 (L–Z). London: Johnson etc. * Rabelais, Francois (1534). ''

'' in ''Oeuvres de Rabelais: éd. variorum, augmentées de pièces inédites...'', Volume 1. Paris: Dalibon. * Skeat, Walter William (1893). ''A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language''. NY: Harper. {{Tables games Historical tables games Traditional board games