A legendary tale tells that when a Danish prince was beheaded, his head was used as a ball and was kicked around.
Since then, people began to play a game where they kicked a ball into a goal. Whether this is true or not, a game with a ball that people kicked around was popular in the 12th century. But it is hard to call it football. Many people participated in the game, with tens or even hundreds of people on each side. There were very few rules, if any. The game was usually very violent that several kings banned it, thinking it might incite sin and violence. But this did not stop people from playing the game. Many people think that the U.S. has only just discovered football, or soccer, as they call it, to distinguish it from American football. In fact, by the time of the arrival of the first white people on the American continent, the native Americans had been playing a game called Pasuckuakohowoq, meaning "they gather to play ball with the foot".