(Quoted from the magazine of the Swedish Railways, Q1 1992. All translation errors from Swedish to English is mine. No, it is not a joke, despite thedate of my posting. If it is a joke, I am not aware that it is.)

Hneftafl - a game for Vikings. By Jan Af Geijerstam.

In the "Iceland tales", different games are described, among others

hneftafl, "naevbraede". It was a game for chiefs; the name probably

refer to that the game was a fight without weapons. According to the

tales it was just as important to know hneftafl as to be able to fight

with a sword.

At the historic museum in Stockholm you can see 1000-year old gamepieces

from rich graves in Birka, placed together with the necessities of life

for the last journey into the realm of death. They were probably used to

play hneftafl.

Rediscovered after 100 years

The rules of the game was for a long time unknown because all

information disappeared when chess came to Norden. It was not until an

english chess- historian connected the findings from Birka with two

written descriptions, it became clear how the gamepieces should be used.

One of the descriptions was in a manuscript from Wales from the 16'th

century, the other in Carl von Linne's notes from his lappish journey

1732; in his notes the lappish/same game was called tablut.

Hneftafl demands acumen and skill, just as chess. If you cut out the

gamepieces you can try the game of the Vikings yourself!

(My description of the game pieces and the board on which they are placed:

In the game, two groups of fighters meet, one group of grey game pieces and

one group of red game pieces. The "swedish" group consist of one chief and

8 soldiers (gray game pieces, the game piece of the chief has an X on top).

The "moskovit" group consist of 16 soldiers (red game pieces).

The board consist of 9 x 9 squares. I will call the rows A-I and

the columns 1-9. The start position of the pieces is placed as in the

picture below. c is 'castle', rc is 'red camp', gs is 'grey soldier'.

The grey chief is in the castle. The red soldiers are placed one in each 'red

camp'.

A B C D E F G H I

1 rc rc rc

2 rc

3 gs

4 rc gs rc

5 rc rc gs gs c gs gs rc rc

6 rc gs rc

7 gs

8 rc

9 rc rc rc

I hope my 'tabulators' work even after sending this article.

End of my description of the board.)

The chief in the castle

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Hneftafl is played by two players, one "swedish" and one "moskovit".

The swedish chief, with 8 grey followers, shall break out of an encirclement

of 16 red moskovites.

The chief, the grey game piece with an X, is placed on the center square with

two grey soldiers in each point of the compass.The 16 "moskovites" are placed

in groups of 4 on the campsquares furthest out in each point of the compass.

The game pieces is moves like the rook/castle in chess, vertical or hori-

sontal. They can not jump over other game pieces. "Swedish" will make the

first move.

You remove your opponents game pieces from the board by putting one of your

own pieces on each side of the opponents game piece.

(I suppose that means

that either 2 or 4 of your own game pieces is needed to remove one of your

opponents pieces. It is not clear from the article if 2 or 4 is needed - my

comment. The description in swedish is "Man sl}r motst}ndarens pj{s genom att

st{lla en pj{s p} varje sida om honom. Slagna pj{ser tas bort fr}n br{det.")

The chief is without any arms and can not attack. "Swedish" wins when the

chief has a clear path out from the board, that the "moskovites" can not

block. When "swedish" discover such an possibility, he must warn his opponent.

The chief can only be removed from the board if he is surrounded by 4

"moskovites", one in each point of the compass. Then they win.

Exactly the same threat must only be repeated a maximum two times in a row.

After that the attacker must find some other means of attack.

The castle and the camp squares have special rules. No game piece is permitted

to enter either the castle or any camp square, even if the chief and the

"moskovites" have left them.

The "moskovites" are permitted to move to another square within the same camp

as long they have not left it. From there they can both remove other game

pieces and be removed themselves. From the chief's point of view, the camp

squares are hostile, even if the "moskovites" have left them. This means

that when cornered adjacent to two camp squares the chief can be removed

by 2 "moskovites".

Standard disclaimer: "Only my personal opinion, of course."

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