Piran rullo bullroarer

rullo

rullo — 'roll / drum-roll': from rullare, a country word for moving round in a circle, and the roll of the drum, which comes so close to the rumble of thunder.

By the time Battaglia came asking, no boy in Pirano whirled the rullo any longer; only the old remembered it as common, some eighty years before — a rectangular tablet with rounded corners, pierced at the top for a knotted cord, its name likening its voice to a drum-roll. The salt town's children still spun the two-string gurlo button on its loop, but the true roarer had slipped out of use before anyone thought to write it down.

Oggi questo gioco e completamente ignorato: era, invece, comune - mi dissero - un'ottantina di anni or sono... Era noto col nome di 'rullo'.

Today this game is completely unknown: it was, however, common — they told me — about eighty years ago... It was known by the name 'rullo'.

Battaglia 1925:204

Particulars

Object

Rectangular tablet rounded at the corners, 15-30 cm, pierced at the upper end for a cord fastened with a simple knot.

Function

Obsolete children's toy: common about eighty years before 1925, completely forgotten as a game by Battaglia's day.