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Broom sports emerged almost as soon as broomsticks were sufficiently advanced to allow fliers to turn corners and vary their speed and height. Early wizarding writings and paintings give us some idea of the games our ancestors played. Some of these no longer exist; others have survived or evolved into the sports we know today. The celebrated annual broom race of Sweden dates from the tenth century. Fliers race from Kopparberg to Arjeplog, a distance of slightly over three hundred miles. The course runs straight through a dragon reservation, and the vast silver trophy is shaped like a Swedish ShortSnout. Nowadays this is an international event and wizards of all nationalities congregate at Kopparberg to cheer the starters, then Apparate to Arjeplog to congratulate the survivors. The famous painting G??nther der Gewaltt??tige ist der Gener (Gunther the Violent Is the ner), dated 1105, shows the ancient German game of Stichstock. A twentyfoothigh pole was topped with an inflated dragon bladder. One player on a broomstick had the job of protecting this bladder. The bladderguardian was tied to the pole by a rope around his or her waist, so that he or she could not fly further than ten feet away from it. The rest of the players would take it in turns to fly at the bladder and attempt to puncture it with the specially sharpened ends of their brooms. The bladderguardian was allowed to use his or her wand to repel these attacks. The game ended when the bladder was successfully punctured, or the bladderguardian had either succeeded in hexing all opponents out of the running or collapsed from exhaustion. Stichstock died out in the fourteenth century.

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In Ireland the game of Aingingein flourished, the subject of many an Irish ballad (the legendary wizard Fingal the Fearless is alleged to have been an Aingingein champion). One by one the players would take the Dom, or ball (actually the gallbladder of a goat), and speed through a series of burning barrels set high in the air on stilts. The Dom was to be thrown through the final barrel. The player who succeeded in getting the Dom through the last barrel in the fastest time, without having caught fire on the way, was the ner. Scotland was the birthplace of what is probably the most dangerous of all broom games Creaothceann. The game features in a tragic Gaelic poem of the eleventh century, the first verse of which says, in translation: The players assembled, twelve fine, hearty men, They strapped on their cauldrons, stood poised to fly, At the sound of the horn they were swiftly airborne But ten of their number were fated to die.We owe our knowledge of the rude beginnings of Quidditch to the writings of the witch Gertie Keddle, who lived on the edge of Queerditch Marsh in the eleventh century. Fortunately for us, she kept a diary, now in the Museum of Quidditch in London. The excerpts below have been translated from the badly spelled Saxon of the original.

Creaothceann players each wore a cauldron strapped to the head. At the sound of the horn or drum, up to a hundred charmed rocks and boulders that had been hovering a hundred feet above the ground began to fall towards the earth. The Creaothceann players zoomed around trying to catch as many rocks as possible in their cauldrons. Considered by many Scottish wizards to be the supreme test of manliness and courage, Creaothceann enjoyed considerable popularity in the Middle Ages, despite the huge number of fatalities that resulted from it. The game was made illegal in 1762, and though Magnus DentHead Macdonald spearheaded a campaign for its reintroduction in the 1960s, the Ministry of Magic refused to lift the ban. Shuntbumps was popular in Devon, England. This was a crude form of jousting, the sole aim being to knock as many other players as possible off their brooms, the last person remaining on their broom ning. Swivenhodge began in Herefordshire. Like Stichstock, this involved an inflated bladder, usually a pigs. Players sat backwards on their brooms and batted the bladder backwards and forwards across a hedge with the brush ends of their brooms. The first person to miss gave their opponent a point. First to reach fifty points was the ner. Swivenhodge is still played in England, though it has never achieved much widespread popularity; Shuntbumps survives only as a childrens game. At Queerditch Marsh, however, a game had been created that would one day become the most popular in the wizarding world. Tuesday. Hot. That lot from across the marsh have been at it again. Playing a stupid game on their broomsticks. A big leather ball landed in my cabbages. I hexed the man who came for it. Id like to see him fly with his knees on back to front, the great hairy hog. Tuesday. Wet. Was out on the marsh picking nettles. Broomstick idiots playing again. Watched for a bit from behind a rock. Theyve got a new ball. Throg it to each other and trying to stick it in trees at either end of the marsh. Pointless rubbish. Tuesday. dy. Gwenog came for nettle tea, then invited me out for a treat. Ended up watching those numbskulls playing their game on the marsh. That big Scottish warlock from up the hill was there. Now theyve got two big, heavy rocks flying around trying to knock them all off their brooms. Unfortunately didnt happen while I was watching. Gwenog told me she often played herself. Went home in disgust.

These extracts reveal much more than Gertie Keddle could have guessed, quite apart from the fact that she only knew the name of one of the days of the week. Firstly, the ball that landed in her cabbage patch was made of leather, as is the modern Quaffle naturally, the inflated bladder used in other broom games of the period would be difficult to throw accurately, particularly in dy conditions. Secondly, Gertie tells us that the men were trying to stick it in trees at either end of the marsh apparently an early form of goalscoring. Thirdly, she gives us a glimpse of the forerunners of Bludgers. It is immensely interesting that there was a big Scottish warlock present. Could he have been a Creaothceann player Was it his idea to bewitch heavy rocks to zoom dangerously around the pitch, inspired by the boulders used in his native game We find no further mention of the sport played on Queerditch Marsh until a century later, when the wizard Good Kneen took up his quill to write to his Norwegian cousin Olaf.

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