Alea Evangelii

Alea Evangelii is a game known from a single Irish manuscript, probably dating from the 11th century. The manuscript mentions the game as having been played at the Saxon court in the 10th century. Judging from the diagram in the manuscript, the game is clearly a member of the hnefatafl family, played on a 19 x 19 grid.

Years ago, I had a plan to make my own alea evangelii set using glass pebbles as pieces, and using a jigsaw to create a wooden grid. That plan never came to fruition ...

Recently, I picked up the idea again, and got myself two bags of glass pebbles, coloured red and green ...

... plus a red glass marble, which I mounted on a rubber washer, to be used as the king piece.

For the board, I happened to have a bamboo xiangqi board, which has a go board at the other side ...

... and go happens to be played on a 19 x 19 grid!

So here's my alea evangelii set on that bamboo go board.

I think it works really well with the glass pebbles.

Nice to see an old idea finally become reality!

Gwezboell set

The Breton word 'gwezboell' is the equivalent of the Welsh 'gwyddbwyll' and the Irish 'fidchell'. These last two words often feature in ancient Welsh and Irish legends, referring to a board game. What exactly that board game was is unclear; it may have been a Celtic version of hnefatafl, it may have been a Celtic version of the Roman game ludus latrunculorum, it may have been something entirely different. Or it may have been all of the above, at different times; more on that in a future blog post.

I don't remember where I got this commercial Gwezboell set; it was many years ago. Although the box proclaims gwezboell to be 'Celtic chess', the creators of this set clearly adhered to gwezboell being a version of hnefatafl. A 9 x 9 version to be precise, with the king escaping at the board's corners.

The board itself is made from cardboard, and the pieces are plastic chess pieces: a king plus 8 + 16 pawns. All in all a very basic set.

By the way, the picture is the only thing I still have of this set; I can't find it anywhere ...

First hnefatafl set

This hnefatafl set I got soon after I became interested in this family of games, their origin and history. It was sold by a company called 'Past Times', which, as far as I'm aware, is no longer in business.

Although no longer produced, this particular set is still easily available via eBay, Amazon, etc.

This hnefatafl set is the 11 x 11 version, with the king escaping at the board's corners. The board is made of cloth and quite nicely done.

The pieces are made from some sort of resin, and moulded to resemble Viking warriors. The white pieces are made to look like ivory; the brown pieces like wood.

Definitely a nice set!

Hnefatafl!

'Hnefatafl' refers to a group of board games originally played in especially the Viking and Celtic regions of northwestern Europe. Although often called 'Viking Chess' or 'Celtic Chess', they are definitely not related to chess, and predate chess in Europe by half a millennium or more.

Hnefatafl-type games (under several names) often appear in ancient Irish, Welsh and Icelandic myths and sagas, but the details of the rules remain a mystery. What is clear is that hnefatafl was (and is) an asymmetric strategic board game, played by two people. One side has a king and a number of defenders; the other side twice the number of attackers, giving an "n + 1 vs 2n" set-up. The aims of the two sides differ: The attackers' aim is to capture the king, whereas the defenders' aim is to let the king escape from the board (either by reaching the edge of the board or one of the corners squares). Capture is not by replacement, as in chess, but by custodianship: a piece is captured when 'sandwiched' between two enemy pieces.

Further information on this family of games is readily available on the internet, and I especially recommend this and this website. In my opinion by far the best two books written about the game, focusing on origin and history, and on play strategy, respectively, are by Jonathon George:



In this blog, I present the hnefatafl sets in my wee collection, either bought, or partially or wholly made myself, as well as several modern games based on, and/or inspired by hnefatafl.