Also known as “Viking Chess” or “The Viking Game”, this board game was popular in a number of different versions throughout the classical Norse age. Collectively they were known as “tafl” games. (From the Norse word for “table” or “board”—“Hnefatafl” means “King’s Board”.)
"Hidden History" is a diary series that explores forgotten and little-known areas of history.
Hnefatafl probably first appeared as a variant of the ancient Roman board game known as Ludus Larunculorum (“Game of Soldiers”), which was remotely similar to a cross between checkers and chess. In the later years of the Roman Empire, a new version of Larunculorum appeared in which the two opposing “armies” were joined by a special piece representing a General, who was invulnerable to attack but who could join in capturing enemy pieces.
In Hnefatafl, this has been reworked into a Norse version. Now, the game represents an attack on a royal stronghold. One Player makes up the invading army, and the other Player is the smaller defending army led by a king. The board represents the king’s great hall or castle. The king starts the game on his throne, surrounded and protected by his huscarl troops, and he must try to make his escape through one of four gateways before the invaders can encircle and capture him.
At the very end of the 8th century CE, raiders from Scandinavia, known as “Vikings”, began to terrorize Europe. With their superior longship technology, they could travel long distances up shallow rivers, strike quickly at unprotected towns or monasteries, and disappear before the local militia forces could pursue them. Eventually however, the raiders turned into traders, and then into settlers. Norse colonies began to spread across Europe. Scandinavians settled in the northern part of France (called “Normandy”), in much of the British Isles and the Orkneys (one of these areas became known as “The Danelaw”), and in Iceland and Greenland. The cities of Dublin, Cork, Limerick, York, Kiev, and Reykjavik were all founded by Viking settlers, and when the Normans from France under William the Conqueror invaded England and defeated King Harold, both sides were descendants of Scandinavians. Intrepid Viking ships reached as far as modern Newfoundland, and extended as far east as “Rus”, an area in modern Ukraine. In all of these places, they brought their Scandinavian culture along with them, and had a tremendous influence on Western legal structures and culture.
They also brought their game of Hnefatafl. The game is mentioned several times in the Sagas, the stories and chronicles that tell of the Vikings and their travels. Playing Hnefatafl was considered to be a valued skill, one practiced by many kings and leaders. Even after the Christianization of the Scandinavians, there were so many noblemen playing Hnefatafl that the Catholic Church first tried to ban it, and when that failed, they introduced a version of their own, steeped in Christian symbolism, which they called Alea Evangelii (“Game of the Gospels”).
In the 12th century, Viking traders in the Kiev area encountered a Persian/Hindu game known as Chaturanga and brought it back to Europe. Here, it adopted some aspects of Hnefatafl and some other games, including the Arab-Spanish game known as Alquerque, and became adapted into what we now know as Chess. After a time, Chess, with its greater complexity, became the favored game in medieval Europe, and Hnefatafl began to fade. By the 14th century, Chess had spread all over Europe, the old Norse versions had disappeared, and Hnefatafl survived only in remote places like Lapland (who played a version known as Tablut) and some parts of Wales.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a new interest in Scandinavian Viking culture, and the now-extinct game of Hnefatafl was rediscovered. The famed naturalist Linnaeus had written down the rules for the Tablut version of Hnefatafl in 1732 while he was studying the reindeer culture of the nomadic Sami people, and these were translated from the Latin into English in 1811. Virtually every modern version of the game is based on that translation (though, because there were some gaps in those rules, there still exist several different versions as different authors tried to plug in the missing portions).
In the ancient form of the game, most of the variation seems to have been in the number of squares on the playing board, and thus also in the number of playing pieces. A version from Sweden seems to have used a 7x7 board, and boards from Ireland and Scotland have been found with 8 or 9 rows, while the most common version had a board with either an 11x11 grid or a 13x13 grid. These boards had a larger number of game pieces for each Player.
If you would like to try out the Game of the Vikings, here is a version that uses an 8x8 board.
Download the two halves of the game board here:
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Download the game pieces here:
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And download the rules here:
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Print the game out on 8.5x11 heavy cardstock paper, cut out the player pieces (or use buttons or beads as pieces) and game board, and you are ready to play using the rules reference card.
NOTE: As some of you already know, all of my diaries here are draft chapters for a number of books I am working on. So I welcome any corrections you may have, whether it's typos or places that are unclear or factual errors. I think of y'all as my pre-publication editors and proofreaders. ;)