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The Tafl Family of Games:
Rules and a Brief History,
With an Emphasis on Tablut
By Colyne Stewart (MKA Todd Fischer) A.S. XXXVI
Tafl
is the catch name for a group of games popular in northern Europe up to a few
hundred years ago. Variants have been found in Finland, Scotland, Ireland,
England, Scandinavia and many other countries. Anywhere that had contact with
the Vikings had contact with tafl.
The
oldest record of a tafl-like game is from 250 BCE, when the Germanic tribes
first entered recorded history. The oldest board found to date was in Denmark.
The board was dated to 400 CE.
Tafl
was written about in folk tales, poems and epics throughout northern Europe. It
appears in an English manuscript dated somewhere during 925-940 CE, and in a
Swedish botanist’s journal in 1732. (It is from this journal that we get most
of our modern information on how to play from.) Gweyddbwyll (a Welsh variant) is
included in the Arthurian legends, where Owain (a Welsh hero) bests King Arthur.
Being
a good tafl player was so important that when the Norseman Earl Rognvalder Kail
bragged about his skills, he topped his list with his strength at tafl.
The
most prevalent version of tafl, the one you are most likely to encounter today,
is the Finnish version, called Tablut. Tablut was played on a 9 x 9 checkered
board. One side, the defenders, consisted of 9 men, one of whom was the king.
They were usually white, and were placed in the center of the board. The king
was placed in the center of the board, on a square called either the King’s
Square, the Throne, or konakis. The attackers numbered sixteen, were most often
red, brown or black, and set up on the edges of the board. The white side
represented Swedes, and the black Moscovites (Russians). In other versions the
King is called Hnefi (‘King’) or Cyningstan (Old English for
‘King-Stone’), and the pieces were called Hunns (‘knobs’), Taeflor
(‘table-men’) or taefelstanas (Old English for ‘table-men’).
Pieces moved like a rook in chess, which is any number of spaces orthogonally (up or down, left or right, not diagonally).
In
most variants any piece could move through the Throne, but only the King could
land on it.
Pieces were captured by having an opponent close in on two sides, either top and bottom, or left and right. If a piece moves intentionally between two enemy pieces of its own volition it is not captured. Multiple captures were possible.
The King is captured by being blocked on all four sides. If the King is sitting beside the Throne, and is blocked by white on the other three sides, he is captured. Also, if any defenders are sitting beside the King, and they and the King are blocked in so none of them can move, the King is captured. (In some modern versions, the King is captured like any other piece.) The King is allowed to take part in captures for his side.
As
should be obvious by now, the attacker’s goal is to capture the King. The
King’s goal is to escape. There are at least two different ways to play this:
1)
Get the King to an edge. In this version, the King wins if he reaches an
outside edge of the board. If he makes a move that opens up a clear path to an
edge for the King, he announces “Raichi”. If this path is opened by
white’s move, he does not have to announce this, and can take opportunity of
the opening on his next move to win the game. If he has two clear paths to an
edge, he announces “Tuichi”. Two paths cannot be blocked during one move, so
it is an automatic win.
2)
Get the King to a corner. Some tafl boards have been found with ornate
corners, leading scholars to believe that in some versions the King had to get
to a corner to win. In this case, one of two rules had to added, to keep white
from simply blocking the corners and forcing a stalemate.
2a)
The corners count as Thrones, which means only the King can land in them. This
doesn’t stop white from simply sitting beside them, effectively blocking
access for the King, so most modern tafl boards use the next rule.
2b)
The corners, and the center Throne, count as hostile spaces. Anyone sitting next
to one is at threat of capture. Once the King leaves the Throne, he cannot land
on it again.
There
is a lot of conjecture about what ancient games were really tafl games. Evidence
is being pieced together from fragments of poems, journal entries and other such
sources, and are usually incomplete or evasive in meaning. The one constant
seems to be that the boards always had an odd number of checks, and that the
defenders had half the number of men as the attackers, plus the King. Also, the
attackers generally go first.
1)
Fitchneal (Irish), played on a 7 x 7 board. Some game historians actually
think this was based on an older Roman game, and was not related to Tafl at all.
2) Tawlbrydd / Tawlbrydd / Tawl-Bwrdd (Welsh), played on an 11 x 11 or 13 x 13 board. Tawl-Bwrdd is usually translated as ‘Throw Board’, and dates back to 914-943 CE. It was played on an 11 x 11 board, with the King and twelve defenders against twenty-four attackers. The way in which this game’s name has been translated, leads some to believe that dice were used in play. Some say that an even roll meant you missed your turn. Others believe that the roll told you how far you could move a piece that turn. This is disputed, as the randomness involves cuts down on a game of skill and tactics.
3) Hnefatafl (Saxon), translates as ‘King’s Table.’ At least one example exists of hnefatafl being played on an 18 x 18 board. Therefore, it is surmised that the pieces were actually placed on the corners of the checks, instead of in the checks, turning the board into a 17 x 17 board. (Many eastern games, such as Go, were played like this.) Hnefatafl on a 19 x 19 board greatly resembles Alea Evangeli.
4) Alea Evangeli (Anglo-Saxon), played on a 19 x 19 board. In this version the defender moved first and the four defenders right around the King are the King’s Guards, and cannot be captured. The other defenders are called Huns.
5) Some games were played on a 7 x 7 board where pieces could only move one space at a time, such as Scotland’s Ard-Ri (‘High King’). Escape was to the corners.
Sire
Bohémond de Niée, Hnefatafl:
The Viking Game.
Lord
Brustende Bearsul (Patrick J. Smith), “Period Pastimes,” The Compleat
Anachronist #71: Ways to While Away a Siege, 1994. 34-35, 46.
Gerhand
Kendal of Westmoreland, “Alquerque and Tafl Games,” The Compleat
Anachronist #4: Indoor Games, Jan 1983, 27-31.
Helmfrid,
Sten, Hnefatafl: The
Strategic Board Game of the Vikings, version 2, 2000.
Knutson,
Charles, “The Games of the Vikings,” Renaissance Magazine #22, 2001.
22-23.
Salaamallah
the Corpulant (Jeffrey A. DeLuca), Medieval Games. Third Edition.
Willimantic, CT, 1995. 72-75.
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