How Many Miles to Babylon? In the 1824 edition of "The Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia" there's a description of the rhyme and the game, giving the distance as "six, seven or a lang eight". The rhyme was originally accompanied by a singing game in which two lines face each other, with one player in the middle. At the end of the rhyme the players have to cross the space and any caught help the original player in the middle catch the others. The game seems to have fallen out of use in the twentieth century. In literature In film In music How Many Miles to Babylon?
Curling by Henry Adamson. The sport was (and still is, in Scotland and Scottish-settled regions like southern New Zealand) also known as "the roaring game" because of the sound the stones make while traveling over the "pebble" (droplets of water applied to the playing surface). The verbal noun "curling" is formed from the Scots (and English) verb "curl", which describes the motion of the stone. Kilsyth Curling Club claims to be the first club in the world, having been formally constituted in 1716; it is still in existence today. Kilsyth also claims the oldest purpose-built curling pond in the world at