SKATING THROUGH THE CENTURIES

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29058, 21 November 1959, Page 3

SKATING THROUGH THE CENTURIES

Ice-Skating: A History. By Nigel Brown. Kaye. 220 pp.

Mr Brown’s book, is something of a surprise. Who would have supposed that ice-skating would afford material for a full-scale history? The story begins some seventeen hundred years ago when skating is mentioned in the Northern sagas. “Uller, god of winter, runs on bones oi animals over the ice.” But undoubtedly the practice was common long before it was ever mentioned in a literary text Ancient bone scates have been discovered in Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and many other countries where the winters are severe.

So far as England is concerned the first evidence of skating on ice occurs in Fitzstephen’s “Description of the most noble City of London.” Much was written in Latin sometime before 1180 Fitzstephen was one of the great Becket’s secretaries. A later translation reads, “When the great fen or moor (which watereth the walls of the city on the 'north side) is frozen, many young men play upon the ice; some striding as wide as they may do slide swiftly; others tie bones to their feet and under their heels, and shoving themselves by a little staff do slide as swiftly as a bird flyeth in the air, or an arrow out of a crossbow.” In this description of Londoners at play, it will be seen that skating was really only a form of sliding as yet. It was not long before skaters acquired a patron saint. Late in the fourteenth century a Dutch maiden, Liedwi, was knocked down while'skating and broke a rib. Never recovering from the mishap she passed the rest of her life in contemplation in a religious house, and is generally known as St Liedwi. A picture of her accident, printed in 1498, is the earliest illustration of a skating scene on record. Iron blades seem to have been first used in Holland, and the advantage was that the wearer could get a good grip on the ice and so propel himself without a long pole. At this time the natural method of skating, the “Dutch Roll,” as destinct from sliding, was discovered, and by 1575 the iron skate and the ability to control it had both reached a certain state of perfection. Mr Brown writes in a most interesting way of the use of skating in the Dutch resistance to Spanish oppression in the sixteenth century. When the Stuarts were in exile in Holland during the Protectorate, they learned all that was known about skating. The gay Duke of Monmouth taught the Dutch ladies the English country dance, and they in turn showed

him how to execute “the outside and inside edge.” Since 1660 figure-skating has always been popular in England. During the winter of 1662 Samuel Pepys was surprised to see skaters on the new canal in St. James’ Park. He wrote “To my Lord Sandwich, to Mr Moore and then over the Park where first In my life, it being a great frost, did see people sliding with their skeetes, which is a very pretty art.” The eighteenth century was the great age of skating clubs. The first to be formed in the British Isles was the Edinburgh Skating Club which demanded a certain degree of proficiency for full membership. It was necessary to skate a complete circle on either foot, and to jump over three hats in ,a row. All sorts of elaborate figures were invented, including “The Serpentine Line,” “The Flying Mercury” and “The Spread Eagle.” Skating entered literature about this-.: time. Klopstock, Goethe, Wordsworth and Lamartine were all lowers of the art.

The nineteenth century was an age of individualists, like Jackson Haines, Maxwell Witham and H. E. Vandervell; but it also saw many innovations. These included skating hand in hand and 'dancing on the ice, a practice which originated, as might be expected, in Vienna. In more modem times championship skating has held the public attention. Sonja Henie was an Olympic champion . who became a truly international figure. “She was sensational in every way, by what she wore, and what she did and how she did it” She may still be said to typify the art of ice-skating in this half century.