Nigel Suckling's
"The Leprechaun Companion", published in 1999, includes the story of a leprechaun who found a bag of
gold and needs to bring it to safety, with the help of four friends. Eight
thieves, however, lie in wait to catch the leprechaun and steal the
gold.
If this sounds a bit like a hnefatafl game, it is, and it is called 'Magpie'.
A print-and-play file was made available, allowing anyone to print off the board and
pieces and so create their own magpie set to play with.
I decided to keep it simple and basically follow the instruction: print off
the board and pieces, and glue them on stiff cardboard.
With the pieces, I took one liberty: I coloured the leprechaun hat.
And my second liberty was to liven the board up a wee bit by adding small
graphics of leprechauns and magpies.
And this is what the complete Magpie game then looks like:
One difference with traditional hnefatafl is the starting array of the
attackers. Helpers and thieves have the normal hnefatafl move (like the rook
in chess), but the leprechaun can only move one square (because the gold is
heavy, of course!).
