Birkie

Birkie, also spelled Birky, is a historical card game for two players from the west coast of Scotland. Sir Walter Scott records it in his novel The Bride of Lammermoor in 1819, and John Galt alludes to it the following year in The Ayrshire Legatees. A work of 1824 lists it among the most popular card games of Galloway, described as a rustic game, and by the 1850s it had reached Glasgow, where print workers played it. The only descriptions of its rules come from John Jamieson's dictionaries of the Scottish language: the players throw down a card in turn and the one who plays the highest card takes the trick, and a later edition adds that a player must follow suit. Jamieson reports two kinds, King's Birkie and Common Birkie, and derives the name from an Icelandic word meaning to boast. It has been equated with Beggar my Neighbour, but its rules differ because it has no pay cards and requires following suit.