Tafl games: Ancient Nordic and Celtic board games

A few weeks ago, in the days before Halloween, I got reading on Wikipedia about the seasonal feasts celebrated in pre-Christian Ireland: Imbolc, Beltaine, Lughnasa and Samhain (the latter being the primary inspiration for modern day Halloween). As is so often the case, I went down a rabbit hole, clicking from one article to the next. I can't remember the exact sequence of links, but eventually I spotted a reference to "Fidchell", a board game apparently popular among the Irish and other Celtic peoples in ancient times. This I found very interesting - as an Irish person, I have always been somewhat interested in the history and culture of pre-Christian Ireland, but I know very little about it and certainly was not aware that "we" had our own board game.

Sadly, despite its apparent importance in Irish folklore and mythology, very little is known today about how Fidchell was played, so the game has effectively been lost to the sands of time. However, according to Wikipedia, Fidchell is speculated to be related to the "Tafl" family of ancient Nordic and Celtic board games. This is another thing I didn't know about, so further down the rabbit hole I went and in the last few weeks I have become very interested in these rather obscure games.

History and rules

One of the most intriguing things about the Tafl family of games is the lack of any standard ruleset. These games have apparently not been seriously popular in a few centuries, having been largely replaced by chess in most places. As a result, very little is known about the precise rules played by the Vikings and Celts back in the games' heyday. Even when they were popular, it is unlikely that a single standard ruleset prevailed. The games pre-date the printing press, so it was not easy to mass-produce documentation for them. The Tafl games likely originated in Scandinavia, possibly based on the Roman board game "ludus latrunculorum". They were then spread by the Vikings to many other lands, most notably Britain and Ireland but also northern continental Europe, Iceland, Greenland and others. The local populations of these lands made their own modifications to the rules. So, for example, there is Hnefatafl from Scandinavia, Brandubh from Ireland, Ard Rí from Scotland, Tablut from Sápmi, Tawlbwrdd from Wales, etc. Each of these games has its own variants and optional rules.

Most of the rulesets used today are pieced together from incomplete (and sometimes inconsistent) historical accounts. The most complete historical account of the rules of any Tafl game is Carl Linnaeus' account of the rules of Tablut in the 18th century. Tablut was the variant played by the Sámi people and apparently told the story of a battle between defending Swedes and attacking Muscovites. Although very helpful in constructing rulesets for Tablut and other Tafl games, Linnaeus' account suffered from a number of contradictions and problems of interpretation. In addition, the rules as recorded by Linnaeus resulted in a rather unbalanced game (in favour of the defending side). So modern Tablut tends to be played with some balancing variations to the rules.

As such, it is difficult to describe the rules of the Tafl games in general terms. However, to give you a general picture, the following aspects are common to most of the known variants:

The game is played on a square board divided into an odd number of rows and columns. The exact size of the board differs depending on the variant.

There are two sides: the attackers (who are usually black) and the defenders (who are usually white). The defending side consists of a king and a number of "soldiers", whereas the attacking side just has soldiers. The exact number of starting soldiers depends on the variant, but the attacking soldiers tend to outnumber the defending soldiers by 2 to 1.

The king and his defenders begin in the centre of the board, and the attackers begin in the middle of each edge of the board.

Each turn, a player moves one of his or her pieces. A piece can move horizontally or vertically (not diagonally), as far as desired unless blocked by another piece.

A piece is captured and removed from the board if surrounded by two pieces of the opposite colour. The rules for capturing the king (or captures by the king) depend on the variant. In some variants, the king must be surrounded on all four sides by opponents to be captured; in others, he may be captured like a normal piece unless on or near his "throne" (his starting position in the centre of the board) or one of the edges in which case special rules apply. A piece can usually move in between two pieces of the opposite colour without being captured. In some variants the king may not be involved in the capture of opposing pieces.

The defenders' goal is for the king to escape to the edge of the board, or one of the corners, depending on the variant. The attackers' goal is to capture the king or to trap the king and his defenders so they cannot move.

Again, these are just some examples of more common rules; there is a lot of variation. Some historical literature even suggests that Hnefatafl may have involved dice, though whether and how dice may have been used is not clear.

The Tafl games play an important role in the folklore of several countries. In Norse mythology, the gods played board games in peaceful times, which were some Tafl variant. After Ragnarök (the final battle of the gods), the earth is reborn and the surviving gods meet to reconcile and share their memories of the past, and then find some of those game pieces lying in the grass.

Playing Tafl games

For various reasons, including the dominance of games such as chess and draughts and a lack of consistency in rules, the Tafl games are not all that popular today, but several variants are still played. The community is small, but the internet has helped bring it together. Below are some of the more common ways to play Tafl games, though I am quite new to the game myself so the list should not be considered exhaustive. Relevant links are in the "Further reading" section below.

The app I have mainly been using to play Tafl games is the "Hnefatafl" app for Android (also available on Steam). This supports a lot of variants out of the box and you can also play your own custom variants. You can play against an AI or online against other players; however, the AI is quite weak in my experience, even if you give it a long time to consider its moves. The UI is quite nice.

Aage Nielsen has a website with a lot of invaluable Tafl resources, including a web interface for playing others online. I haven't played a game on this website yet but it appears to have the most active community and holds tournaments regularly.

There is also OpenTafl, a "free as in beer" Tafl server and client implementation which includes an AI. I haven't used this much as I don't like the UI.

I have read that there is a Hnefatafl association on the Shetland Island of Fetlar, which holds (or held, at least) regular Hnefatafl tournaments. Unfortunately I can't seem to find any information about this that is more recent than 2018, but if the Hnefatafl community is still alive there it's yet another reason to make a trip to the Shetland Islands - which is already on my bucket list!

Tafl games: Ancient Nordic and Celtic board games

History and rules

Playing Tafl games

Further reading

Wikipedia pages