Devil among the tailors is a pub game which is a form of table skittles.
The game involves 9 small skittles arranged in a 3 × 3 square, usually within a shallow open-topped wooden box sitting on a table-top. The wooden ball (about the size of a golf ball) hangs from a string or chain attached to the top of a vertical wooden post rising from one corner of the box. The aim of the game is to knock down the skittles by swinging the ball in an arc round the post (rather than aiming directly at the skittles).
It is also the name of a game in which each player spins a spinning top with a string, to knock down skittles, earning points for doing so. This game is quite a large table game, around 1M × 1.5M The game may be referred to as "De'il Among the Tailors" in Scotland. An example of this game is on display in Osterley Manor in London.
The game can be seen in a pub setting in the Beatles movie A Hard Day's Night at the 1 hour 4 minute mark. Ringo goes AWOL from a gig and ends up annoying people playing various pub games.
Read more about Devil Among The Tailors: Name Origins, Alternative Meaning
Famous quotes containing the word devil:
“Will mankind never learn that policy is not morality,—that it never secures any moral right, but considers merely what is expedient? chooses the available candidate,—who is invariably the devil,—and what right have his constituents to be surprised, because the devil does not behave like an angel of light? What is wanted is men, not of policy, but of probity,—who recognize a higher law than the Constitution, or the decision of the majority.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)