Hnefatafl in Russia

At the present time hnefatafl in Russia is known as “tavlei” — «тавлеи»). Under this title («тавлеи» — “tavlei”, «тавля» — “tavlya”, sometimes in vernacular version «велеи» — “velei”) the game was named in Russian epics, songs and legends, where the Russian epic heroes were playing “German tavlei” (in Russia everything foreign was called German), and was prohibited by Russian orthodox church. In the aftermath of that the game was forgotten and the rules were lost. The word “tavlei” in the late Russian language means a game of checkers.

The word “tavleya” comes from the Greek language (“τάβλαις”) and means “board”. Also from the dictionary of the Constantinople Patriarch Photios it’s known that the word “tavleya” is the equivalent to the word “petteia” (“πεττείαις — παιδιαῖς τάβλαις”, “petteia — the game of tavleya”) which means the ancient Greek game. From petteia developed a Roman war game called “latrunculi” (“ludus latrunculorum”), from which in turn probably developed the game of hnefatafl. Thus, despite the fact that the nature of the game “tavlei” is unclear because of the loss of its rules, it may be assumed that this is an analogue of hnefatafl — the board game of the Vikings.

My acquaintance with hnefatafl happened by accident at the end of August 2016. I helped my friend to find a chess set with figures in the form of the Vikings, on internet request (“Viking chess”) I got the information about tafl games, pretty quickly found the site of Aage Nielsen (aka “Hagbard”) and began to play. Simultaneously I registered for the World Tafl Federation Hnefatafl Championship tournament 2016. Of course the aim wasn’t to win that tournament, the objective was to start learning the game in the most serious circumstances.

The game attracted my attention because of asymmetry in the amount of the attacking forces and defenders, as well as in objectives of the game (each side has its own objectives), and because of its rich historical past. In this game because of the different purposes of playing sides it’s particularly important to think not only for yourself but simultaneously to think like your opponent.

By participating in the tournament, I acquainted myself with the Welsh version of tafl called “Tawlbwrdd”, it was played in the first round of the championship, and at the same time with what is called “historical hnefatafl rules”, I was very impressed and captivated. I began to play Saami tablut, the rules of this game were documented by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus and they are our closest link to the game of the Vikings, they are authentically historical. I fully agree with Damien Walker (aka “Cyningstan”), author of the book “Reconstructing hnefatafl” and the web-site tafl.cyningstan.com: were it not for the increasing popularity of the modern Copenhagen variant among the best hnefatafl players, I'd be calling for tablut to be a standardised game for tournaments on many sizes of board.

At the moment in Russia we have at least two commercial sets of “Tavlei”, which are produced in limited editions, and on the Internet you can find a sufficient number of self-made sets made by Russian craftsmen. There is also an application for smartphones with the same name.

“Tavlei” in modern Russian form is a variant played on a 9×9 board. However, in contrast to the historical rules the purpose of the king is to reach one of the four corners of the board. Moreover, the range of king’s movement is limited to three squares (optional, sometimes the game is played without this rule). In my opinion historical Saami tablut rules represent a very balanced game, why it was necessary to upgrade them in that way — I don’t understand.

In any case, all numerous tafl variants somehow bring all of us closer to the hnefatafl renaissance. As the chairman of the World Tafl Federation (WTF) Tim Millar (aka “Crust”) likes to say: “The heroes of the hnefatafl renaissance spread the word”. Let us hope that this renaissance is not long to wait.

Alexander Fomichev (aka “Ded Fomich”) especially for the blog of Marco Gandolfo (aka “Mmagari”) “Bellezza e Armonia nei Giochi strategici” 

(http://bellezzaearmonianeigiochistrategici.blogspot.it)

15.01.2017
Moscow, Russia