i have a bruegel tapestry hanging in my room, The Harvesters. once during some idle gazing (bruegel’s great for idle gazing), i noticed a group of people in the distant fields engaged in some sort of activity. i’d seen them before, certainly, but hadn’t paid attention to what they were doing. now i realized they were throwing sticks at a strung up bird.

the closest thing i could find on it was a game called “throwing at cocks”. the stick was called a “cokstele”. after a moment of sick embarrassment (i had hung this on my wall, after all), i got to thinking about it a little more.

what came to mind was the massive boredom of pre-modernity, the lack of cheap toys with responsive sound effects, when dolls and figurines had to be laboriously crafted— too laboriously to be destroyed on a playful whim. but animals were all around, renewable, and quite vocal about their mistreatment.

it’d be nice to think only the most bloodthirsty section of society enjoyed this game. but it genuinely seems like it was a broadly popular pastime. if this game and those like it are examples of how human boredom can be a pretty malevolent force… thank goodness we have better toys. there but for the grace of progress go we