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Conkers is a traditional children's game in Britain and Ireland played using the seeds of horse chestnut trees—the name 'conker' is also applied to the seed and to the tree itself. The game is played by two players, each with a conker threaded onto a piece of string: they take turns striking each other's conker until one breaks. ==Origins== The first mention of the game is in Robert Southey's memoirs published in 1821. He describes a similar game, but played with snail shells or hazelnuts. It was only from the 1850s that using horse chestnuts was regularly referred to in certain regions. The game grew in popularity in the 20th century, and spread beyond England. The first recorded game of Conkers using Horse Chestnuts was on the Isle of Wight in 1848.〔Iona and Peter Opie, ''Children's Games in Street and Playground: Chasing, catching, seeking, hunting, racing, duelling, exerting, daring, guessing, acting, pretending'', Oxford: Clarendon, 1969, (p. 232 ).〕 There is uncertainty of the origins of the name. The name may come from the dialect word ''conker'', meaning "hard nut" (perhaps related to French ''conque'' meaning a conch, as the game was originally played using snail shells and small bits of string.〔 refers to Conkers as "the same game as Cogger" and states that it is more generally known as "playin at sneel-shells".〕) The name may also be influenced by the verb ''conquer'', as earlier games involving shells and hazelnuts has also been called ''conquerors''.〔 Another possibility is that it is onomatopoeia, representing the sound made by a Horse Chestnut as it hits another hard object, such as a skull (another children's "game", also called conkers, consists of simply throwing the seeds at one another over a fence or wall). Conkers are also known regionally as ''obblyonkers'', ''cheggies *'' or ''cheesers''. Although a "cheeser" is a conker with one or more flat sides, this comes about due to it sharing its pod with other conkers (twins or triplets). Also ''Cheggers'' was used in Lancaster, England in the 1920s. In D. H. Lawrence's book ''Sons and Lovers'', the game is referred to as ''cobblers'' by William Morel. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Conkers」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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