Fairigame. Fairigame began as an aristocrat's sport, but today it can be played by anyone. Our first record of the game dates from the Year of Unstill Seating (940). The O'Charmi'en treaty had brought peace to the aristocratic states, and these newly-reconciled people were trying to find a way to celebrate their similarities. "What are we?" they said. "We're Lords and Ladies and Dukes and Earls. We're not common folk. We're polite. We are refined." Hence Fairigame, a pasttime so demure and peaceful that it drove the Baroness Anita Teeth stark raving mad. Samara Jalaya reports on her encounter with the sport ... "It was a few days ago that I was wandering a bit near the Drosophila River when I saw something strange far away. It seemed like there was a bazaar or something going on: I saw parasols, a small table, two comfortable armchairs and a lot of small carpets. When I came closer I saw two men, both dressed as gentlemen and both holding a short stick. In the sand where two small logs and the two men where laughing at each other all the time, shaking hands and saying: “You’re playing so well today, mon amice!” “No you are playing well! Better than me, without any doubt.” “Hi,” I said. They turned to me and said at the same time: “You are the best!” pointing with their sticks to me. “I’m the what? The best in what?” “Fairigame,” one of the men, the one with a thick moustache, said. “That’s what we’re playing. Don’t tell us you don’t know it!” “Well, to be honest, I don’t,” I answered. “Is it a sport?” “Sport is a small word,” the other man said, “Let’s say it’s a challenge and the hardest game of Umbagollah.” “Want some tea?” the moustache-man asked, “Sit down, we’ll show it to you.” They put me in one of the two armchairs, gave me an enourmous cup of tea and a whole cake and walked to the logs again. A long time they walked around them, then the moustache-man said: “It’s your turn, amice, you hit much better than I.” “Then it’s your turn now,” the other said, “We have to play fair.” “Okay then,” the other sighed, raised his stick and hit the log. Sure it hardly didn’t move, square logs don’t roll and they don’t move in sand at all. “Wonderful turn!” the man who hadn’t hit yelled. “But what a pity there was a small rock in the log’s way. Let me remove it for you!” And he stooped to remove a large grain of sand, for which the name “rock” was more than excessive. Then he stooped again to pick his partner’s log, walked a few metres and put it down again. Then he walked back and said to his friend: “You’re going to win this game without any doubt!” “You’re playing so well,” the moustache-man said moved. “Now you may hit three times without interruption, no four times!” “That’s too much honour,” the other said, putting off his glasses and wiping away a tear in his eye. “You deserve it, amice.” Still in the armchair I sat there for hours looking to the strange game. Now and then the men left their logs for a while to sit with me and drink some tea. “Tell me,” I said during one of this little breaks, “Has this sport any rules?” “No,” the man with the moustache said. “The only rule is that you have to play it fair and gentleman-like.” “So there aren’t any punishments when you do something wrong?” I asked. “Rules that aren’t there can’t be broken,” the other man said in a teacher-like tone. “And why should we break them? We play Fairigame, so we would lose immediately. Vulgar pigs need rules, we don’t, do we, amice?” “And there isn’t a ball boy who helps you carrying your stuff?” I asked again. “He was there, wasn’t he?” the one man asked the other. “I suppose he was,” the other said, thinking and then: “Oh, we send him away. For a holiday we paid. He had done so much for us.” “He did!” the other agreed. “I can remember at the times he wasn’t sleeping, he cheered “Bravo!” now and then.” “Can you remember the horse you gave him?” “Now that was a nice game,” the other man said. “You let me win because of the horse, although of course you were more generous to our ball boy than I.” “Oh, don’t be stupid. What is a sailingboat compared to a horse?” After it they laughed out loud, until the moustache man said: “Come on, amice, back to the game. I feel you’re going to win this time!” Until late that night I stayed with the two men and their endless game. At last the moustache-man decided the other man had won. Of course he first denied it, then was so moved that he burst into tears and couldn’t speak for half an hour. After a long, amicable embracement with his moustache-friend he sniveled: “You’re playing so well! You’re playing so well! Thank you!” When I left them, after I’d promised to visit again and to play with them, the poor man was still very moved and sniveling in his friends’ arms. By the way, I rode back home on a horse and with new shoes on and a new hat. (“You can’t leave us without taking them!” Mister Moustache said and immediately after it: "Of course it was my friend’s idea. He’s so good at this game.”) Everyone who’s interested in this sport called Fairigame can go to the Falling Hills, near the Drosophila River. There are often championships held were the Umbagollian Fairigame-top meets. These guys are sure really good at it and when you don’t watch out you’ll go home carrying a complete new household. "