Hnefatafl

Alternate Names

Tafl is the older name for this game and is Old Norse for “table”. The game later became known as Hnefatafl, probably meaning “Fist Table”, but also may translate as "King's Table". This distinguished it from other games known to the old Norse people including Skak-tafl (Chess), Kvatru-Tafl (Tabula), Hala-tafl (Fox & Geese) and Hræ-tafl (Three Men's Morris and Nine Men’s Morris).

No. of Players

Two

Equipment

A Hnefatafl board

History

Hnefatafl was a popular game in medieval Scandinavia and was mentioned in several of the Norse Sagas. Some of these saga references have contributed to controversy over the possible use of dice in playing hnefatafl. The rules of the game were never explicitly recorded, and only playing pieces and fragmentary boards are extant, so it is not known for sure how the game was played. If dice were in fact used, nothing has been recorded about how they were employed. Archaeological and literary sources indicate Hnefatafl may have been played on a 13×13 or an 11×11 board. It became a popular game in Northern Europe during the Viking era (end of the 8th Century to 1000 CE), a turbulent time full of conflicts. When chess became a popular game during the Middle Ages, the rules of Hnefatafl were forgotten over time. Hnefatafl was particularly popular in Nordic countries and followed the Viking civilization to other parts of Europe, primarily to the British Isles and the Viking country of Gardarike. The game developed differently at different locations. Archaeologists have found editions in places such as Ireland and Ukraine. It was last recorded to have been played in Wales during 1587 and Lapland in 1723.

Objective

Hnefatafl is certainly similar to other Tafl games and the reconstructed play of it follows that of other Tafl games. As in all Tafl games, it is nearly universally accepted that the objective of the "attacker" player, with the larger force, is to capture the king and the objective of the defender is to allow for the king to escape. Even the most definite ideas concerning Tafl games, however, will eventually have some doubt cast on them by a reconstruction. Here, one of the primary questions that arise is: Where does the king escape to? Most reconstructions say that the king has escaped once it has attained any cell at the edge of the board. Sometimes this is stated as escaping "off of the board", but this is just a matter of semantics because a piece that has attained an edge square could not be impeded from further advancement off board. (Unless, of course, the reconstruction being played only allows the king a single orthogonal move per turn, rather than the generally accepted move of the rook in Orthochess. In which case the attacker would have one last chance to capture the king before it escapes off board.) There are, however, many ideas that the king should be made to escape to a corner cell. Evidence for this comes from many existing historical boards which have special markings at the corners. These specially marked squares may also designate a place that a piece may be captured against or be for simple decoration.

Questions may also arise as to how the king is captured. It is generally accepted that the king is captured exactly as other counters are captured, via double custodianship. Also known as sandwiching, this just means that if a counter has two opposing counters on either side of it, so that all three of them are now in an orthogonal line with the odd counter in the center, the central odd counter is then captured and removed from the board for the rest of the game. Again, however, some dissent arises. This dissent, however, may only arise from misinterpretations of Linnaeus' account of the related game Tablut or from misunderstandings by Linnaeus himself. It is easy to find 20th century descriptions (Murray, Bell, et al.) of this Sami Tafl game, stating that the king was captured by quadruple custodianship, or being surrounded on all four sides by opposing pieces. It is easy to see, however, that this can make the objective of the attackers very difficult to nearly impossible. It is increasingly common to interpret Tablut rules and Linnaeus' description of them as meaning that a king is captured by quadruple custodianship only when it is still at the central square (throne or "konakis") and also by triple custodianship, being surrounded by three opposing counters where the fourth vacant side is the konakis. Interestingly, this also suggests that a king can not re-enter the throne or konakis once it has left. I would personally suggest using simple double custodianship capture for all pieces in all Tafl games. This not only seems logical, but is also simple.

Play

Deciding which player has the first move is one of the first questions to resolve. Historical sources provide little or no information as to this, but most reconstructions seem to favor the attacker having the first move. After all, he is the attacker.

Another (almost) universally accepted Tafl rule concerns the movement of the pieces. All pieces move any distance orthogonally (like the rook in Orthochess), provided that all cells passed over are vacant. This is nearly universal with only a few exceptions: a challenging and slower-paced game can be played, in particular on the smaller 7x7 board, by only allowing single orthogonal moves, one cell in any orthogonal direction to a neighboring and vacant cell. Sometimes this slower movement is applied to the king only. Other exceptions to this rule consider the central square off limits to the attackers or all counters, even including the king once it has left its throne. Others consider the corner squares or other specially marked squares to be off-limits to defender counters, and sometimes they are places against which a defender counter can be captured.

Capture by double custodianship as a rule has seen very little disagreement. Most of the exceptions to this have already been discussed above, i.e. the king being captured by quadruple custodianship at the konakis and triple custodianship by the konakis. Reconstructions have, at times, not allowed the king any capturing moves. The questions that arise that would need to be addressed in a Tafl Official Rulebook, concern compulsory capture, and capture at the edges and corners of the board. My personal suggestion is to allow L-shaped double custodianship capture at the corners and not to allow capture by single opposing counter for pieces at the edges. I would also not suggest a compulsory capture rule, for either side.

Other questions arise considering custodianship capture. Can more than one opposing counter, when they are in-line orthogonally be captured? Presumably, a double capture is allowed as a total of two single captures, although theoretically, a rule only allowing the capture of a single opposing counter per turn could be implemented. Also, can a counter safely move and come to stop between two opposing counters?

Although historical sources leave much ambiguity concerning the precise rules of custodial capture it is obviously prerequisite to decide on a set of rules before commencing a Tafl game. Although some methods described above will speed up or slow down the pace of the game, and some will offer more advantage for one side or the other, any of them will work to play. My personal suggestion is to always allow intervention between two opposing pieces without threat of capture after the turn. In other words, a capture can only be made by enacting the capture yourself and the opposing piece(s) are to be removed at the end of your turn. Also, a counter may enact up to three regular custodianship captures in one turn and would thereby capture 1, 2, or 3 counters, but multiple capture custodianship is never allowed. Multiple capture custodianship, illegal by my reconstruction and others, is where one counter moves to the end of a straight line of two, three, or more opposing counters that have a friendly counter at the other end of that straight line and then all of the middle opposing counters are captured.

Linnaeus described a rule stating that if the king should ever have a path of escape, the defender player must call out "raichi", to notify his opponent. If the king has two routes of escape, the defender wins the game as there is no way for the opponent to block both routes. In this case, the defender calls out "tuichu". Although this may be helpful for balancing the play for better odds to the attacker, it seems likely that this rule represents a later borrowing from Chess and may not have been used historically (compare to "check" and "checkmate"). This calling out rule is necessarily left in game play for Tablut but is typically left out of reconstructions for other Tafl games.

Strategy

Variations

Numerous variations in reconstructions for the initial setup on the 11x11 board.

The above two opening positions have also been utilized for reconstructions of Tawlbwrdd.

A 13x13 board from the 10th century Gokstad Ship has been reconstructed with at least five different opening positions:

A 15x15 board is known from Coppergate in York England

Sources

1. http://tafl.cyningstan.com/page/238/other-board-layouts

2. Pritchard, David. The Family Book of Games. Brockhampton Press, 1994. ISBN 1-86019-021-9