W e are horrified today by the violence found in some sports, and the injuries received by the combatants, but most of these pale into insignificance compared with rural sports practised as late as the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Cutshins and kickshins were violent contact sports popular in the Vale of White Horse. Cutshins was played by carters who stood a little apart and slashed at each other's legs with their whips until one gave in by shouting Hold!' Kickshins was potentially more dangerous as each man held on to his opponent's smock collar and kicked with hob-nailed boots at his shins, again the loser paying for the beer. The sport could lead to the men's shins becoming bent and twisted. At Filkins, disputes were settled by shin-kicking until the early 19th century. The participants soaked their boots in rainwater and let them dry in the sun to harden them.

Backswording was more universally popular. Men armed with a cudgel had their left hands strapped behind their backs, aiming to hit the top of the head, not the face, and the blood had to run down for an inch before a hit was counted.

In 1636, the Laudian Statutes prohibited members of the university from cudgel-playing', but this did not stop others partaking. In 1684, a reference in a pamphlet (MS Top Oxon d.201) described the great Cudgel-playing at Cowley Wake, which is the Olympiad of that Country where John Pasmore of Hedington was the Hat and Feather'.

In 1723 backswording was performed at Wantage Fair: there was a very great match of backsword and cudgel playing between the hill-country and the vale-country. Berkshire men being famous for this sport or exercise. And 'tis remarkable that at Childrey, by Wantage, lives one old Vicars, a farmer, who hath been very excellent at it, and hath now five sons, that are so expert in it that 'tis supposed they are a match for any five in England. They always come off victors, and carry off the hat, the reward of the conqueror, so that they have not bought any hats since they have been celebrated for this exercise.' (Reliquae Hearnianae, ii, 168) Jackson's Oxford Journal advertised backswording at Bampton on May 15, 1753: This is to give notice that there will be five guineas play'd for at back-sword, on Wednesday in the Whitsun week at Bampton in Oxfordshire, by nine or eleven men on a side: but if the sides cannot be made, then that side that shews out shall have one guinea and the remainder to be play'd out at five shillings each head, and one shilling to the man that has his head broke.' In Hanborough in the early 19th century, backswording, singlestick and wrestling matches were organised by Jericho Hall, who dressed flamboyantly in knee breeches, blue stockings and buckle shoes and lived at the the Wrestling House, later changed to the Rosslin House'.

By the mid-19th century, contact sports were going out of fashion, according to Thomas Hughes in Scouring of the White Horse: "We wish to say a few words, my men, to those who are going to play with the sticks or wrestle today. There has been a good deal of talk about these sports and many persons think they shouldn't be allowed at all now-a-days - that the time for them has gone by. They say, that men always lose their tempers and get brutal at these sports. We have settled however to give the old-fashioned games a fair trial; and it will rest with yourselves whether we shall ever be able to offer prizes for them again. For depend upon it, if there is any savage work to-day, if you lose your tempers, and strike or kick one another unfairly, you will never see any more wrestling or backsword on White Horse Hill."

Jingling was popular in Moreton in the Vale of White Horse until 1860. Two blindfolded men were placed inside a pen made from hurdles, one carrying a bell and the other trying to find him from the sound he made.

The sport was also popular at the Scouring of the White Horse, but Thomas Hughes was not impressed: "I thought this the slowest game I saw. The ring must have been forty yards across, or thereabouts, and there were only eight blindfolded men running after the bellman. To make it good fun there should have been 25 or 30 at least. Then the bellman, who has his hands tied behind him, ought to have the bell tied round his neck, or somewhere where he can't get at it to stop the ringing; but our bellman had the bell tied to his waistband behind, so that he could catch hold of it when he was in danger. Then half the men could see, I'm sure, by the way they carried their heads up in the air, especially one gipsy, who, I think, won the prize at last. The men who couldn't see were worth watching, for they kept catching and tumbling over one other."

Some traditional sports were usually practised in public houses such as the quintessentially Oxfordshire pub game Aunt Sally (pictured), which may have replaced shying at cocks, and is said by some players to date back to the 15th century.

Fairgrounds had Aunt Sally games where the target was a clay pipe in the mouth of a black female doll's face, but the current Sally' is a round piece of wood with a face marked on, placed on a metal stand. Eight players form each team, and each player has six sticks approximately the size of a rolling pin to throw, aiming to knock the head off, without touching the stand, each time, giving a maximum score for each leg of 48, and a match consists of three legs. An umpire oversees proceedings and someone else replaces the fallen head.

An Aunt Sally league still exists in Oxfordshire and Aunt Sally was one of the pub games included in the inaugural English Pub Games Championship in 2004 at Ditchley Park, which included marbles, skittles, ring tennis, three-legged races, shove halfpenny, dominoes, short mat bowls, horseshoe throwing, tiddlywinks, darts and crib.

George Swinford recalled three quoits beds in Filkins. Two holes were dug one foot deep and two yards square, twenty yards apart, which were filled with clay and an iron peg was stuck in the centre. Each player had two steel quoits, diameter about six inches, weighing about two pounds, which were dropped over the peg, or as close to it as possible. A quoit which dropped over the peg was a ringer' which gained two points, the next closest got one point.

The game died out around 1900 in Filkins, but carried on until the late 20th century in some places such as Stoke Row. At Berrick Salome the quoits were flat on one side and curved the other, and if the quoit fell on the curved side it was known as the lady'.

Another Filkins game was bandy, which resembled hockey. Sticks were gathered from the hedgerows and the ball used, the nunney, was a block of elm the size of a hen's egg, which was hit from wall to wall or hedge to hedge. If a player covered the nunney with his foot his opponents shouted Turn, Bumby!', and he was liable to be hit if he did not get out of the way. Bandy was replaced by football in Filkins in 1898.

Christine Bloxham's book, Folklore of Oxfordshire, is published by Tempus, price £14.99