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New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 19, 7 May 1892, Page 478

Cunning Ways. —We frequently find backgammon boards with backs lettered as if they were two folio volumes. The origin of it was thus : Eudes, Bishop of Sully, forbade his clergy to play at chess. As they were resolved not to obey the commandment, and yet dated not have a chess-board seen in their houses or cloisters, they had them bound and letteied as books, and played at night, before they went to bed, instead of reading the New Testament or the lives of the Saints ; and the monks called the draft or chessboard their wooden gospel. They had also drinking vessels bound to resemble the breviary, and were found drinking when it was supposed they were at prayer.