Long before chess came to the North, people sat on the long winter evening over a different board: Hnefatafl, the “king's game.” It was not a game of equals against equals, but an unequal fight – a king who must escape encirclement, against a superior force trying to catch him. A look at the favourite game of the Vikings.
Hnefatafl (from hnefi, “king,” and tafl, “board” or “game”) is played on a gridded board. In the middle stands the king with his few defenders; around them, at the edges, sits the twice-as-large host of attackers. The two sides have quite different goals: the king tries to flee to the edge or into a corner, the attackers try to shut him in from all sides. A game of breakout and encirclement – unlike any game we know today.
Astonishingly much of this game survives. In graves sets of playing pieces of glass, bone and amber were found, along with a specially marked “king” piece. In Ireland a wooden gaming board came to light. And on the Swedish Ockelbo runestone two men are shown sitting over a board – a picture of the game from the time itself. In the sagas, too, “tafl” is played again and again.
They played tafl in the meadow, / they were merry; / to them nothing was lacking of gold. Völuspá 8 (translation after Karl Simrock 1851, public domain) – the gods at their board game in the golden age
Even the Edda tells that in the golden age the gods sat in the grass with golden playing pieces – an image of peace and leisure. For centuries Hnefatafl was the great board game of the North. Only when chess came to Scandinavia along the trade routes did it gradually push out the old king's game. Both share the same idea: a king who must be protected or caught – only in chess is the fight equally matched.
One must picture life in the North: long, dark winters, the fire in the hall, the storm outside. A board game was more than a pastime there – it was company, contest and a piece of dignity. Whoever played well was thought clever. So tafl belonged to the image of the accomplished person, beside swimming, riding and poetry.
A gaming board, a set of pieces, made with care – that is craft that gives joy and lasts. Exactly this joy in beautiful things of wood we carry into our work. That the Vikings had their tools for it is shown in our piece on the Mästermyr tool chest.
Hnefatafl was an asymmetric board game of the Viking Age: a king with few defenders in the middle against a twice-as-strong host of attackers at the edge; the king's goal is flight to the edge/corner, the attackers' goal is encirclement. Attested by playing pieces (glass, bone, amber) and the marked king piece in graves, a wooden board from Ireland (Ballinderry) and the depiction on the Ockelbo runestone; “tafl” is often played in the sagas. Displaced by chess.
The exact rules are NOT fully preserved – the versions played today are reconstructions from scattered hints (among them a late record by a pupil of Linnaeus). Board sizes also vary. What is certain is the principle (king against superior force, flight against encirclement) and the finds; the precise move rules remain interpretation.
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