"Caution!!!!!! Flying Eggs!" warns a sign on a field in the English village of Swaton, host on Sunday to the annual World Egg Throwing Championships.
Drawing hundreds of competitors and cheering spectators, it's a messy game claiming a 700-year history and a popularity that is illustrated by “egg-streme” puns.
Teams of two line up on the grass to try to throw and catch eggs without breaking the shell. Starting at 10 meters (11 yards) apart, the "tosser" throws an egg to a teammate, the "catcher". After each successful catch they spread further apart.
The winning team is the one that completes a catch over the furthest distance, with no breakage. This year it was Richard Gutsell and Michael Speakman.
"It was tough... We had a downward wind and that helped an awful lot, but it's mainly thanks to him because if you can't throw it that far you can't catch it," Speakman said of thrower Gutsell.
The World Egg Throwing Federation, set up in 2004, believes the game originated around 1322 when an abbot in the Lincolnshire village, the only person who had chickens, encouraged church attendance by giving locals a reward of one egg.
When the river flooded and prevented parishioners from attending Mass, monks are said to have thrown the eggs over to them, according to the Federation.
There are several disciplines at the contest, such as Egg Throwing, Russian Egg Roulette, Egg Static Relay, Egg Catapult and Egg Target Throwing.
In Russian Egg Roulette, which is a great favourite with spectators, two players sit facing each other, taking it in turn to pick from six eggs, one of which is raw, and smash them on their foreheads. Whoever avoids the uncooked one is declared winner.
"At first people don't really know what to make of it... but as they take part, listen in and see people's reactions they really buy in," event compere John Deptford said.