La soule, also known as choule, is a traditional team sport that originated in Normandy and Picardy. The ball, called a soule, could be solid or hollow and made of either wood or leather. Leather balls would be filled with hay, bran, horse hair or moss. Sometimes the balls had woolen pompons.

It would appear that ball games such as soule developed naturally as a pastime, if only tossing the ball around. It would be played wherever crowds of people met, e.g., after church services on Sundays or on religious holidays. And so we find that la soule was a game played chiefly on the Christian holidays of Easter, Christmas, or on occasion at weddings or the day of the patron saint of the parish. The play could be aggressive, sometimes violent. It involved getting a ball into the opponents’ goal, using hands, feet or sticks. It was not uncommon for participants to be injured, and broken limbs were often reported. The sport seems to have been a very important stress release for the common villagers.

Soule (Basque: Zuberoa; Zuberoan Basque: Xiberoa or Xiberua; Gascon: Sola) is a former viscounty and French province and part of the present day Pyrénées-Atlantiques département. It is divided into two cantons of the arrondissement (district) of Oloron-Sainte-Marie (Mauleon-Licharre and Tardets-Sorholus), and a part of the canton of Saint Palais (arrondissement of Bayonne).

Its provincial capital is Mauléon, which fused with Licharre in 1841 to form "Mauléon-Licharre", but today is often known as "Mauléon-Soule". Historically, Soule is the smallest province of the Basque Country (785 km².). Its population has been decreasing (23,803 in 1901; 16,006 in 1990; 15,535 in 1999).

The whole territory extends around the axis provided by the Saison River (Uhaitza in Basque) flowing south to north until it joins the Oloron River.

Soule borders:

Soule comprises three geographical areas:

After decades of emigration and demographic, social and cultural decay, the territory is showing a strong determination in recovering the lost vitality of centuries ago. Assorted cultural events linked to old traditions bear witness to that dynamism.