Viking Chess game - Hnefatafl - Scrapwood Challenge ep23 

Nah, the Vikings are the ambusher, the Saxons are trapped in the middle!

@@karltriebel4262 Vinland Saga (the MADLAD joined the enemy because they war too easy to beat and he wanted a challenge so i beg to differ)

Well I usually "arrest" people who call it viking chess, because it has almost nothing to do with chess... Except that both are a part of a huge range of games being board games with pieces to move through squares. Some historians say that the early viking age idea is that the attackers are the orcs/giants/trolls ("jotunn") from Jotunheimr, one of of the 9 worlds of norse mythology (thus the attacking pieces should be dark). The royal house in the middle are the defenders of Valhalla or Åsgård/Aoss-gartha, where the pawns are the Einherjar. Odin/Wouthann being the white king in the middle square is supposed to escape to one of the corners. In any case, it was a good way to train one's mind for strategical thinking and finding solutions. Or sometimes maybe just as a time-waste for chieftains and royals. The game was called tawlbrdd in Wales. Note that the board is 9x9 squares. It may have a cultural significance to ancient Levant/Middle-eastern/eurasian cultures where the number 9 was important (but it could also very well just be that it is practical for the gamle setup since one team is escaping and the other attacking). There are loads of board games in history that are mostly unknown to people, from many cultures around the planet. Only the lappish people/säämi in the north and (mostly before)also central Scandinavia had 4 different versions of board games. See for example Sáhkku (a broad a there, like in the english word sand). The name Tablut, Dääbloe and Tablo were some of the names (can remind of the modern french word tableau and the swedish tablå -the "å" = "aw" like in english "raw", or pronounced like the o in "force"). These names were in Sweden used for both the Hnefatafl, Halatafl and another form of the Sáhkku. There was also a čuhkka - "tshoukka". The nordic cultures also had pure dice throws sometimes used by "völva"-witches for fortune telling.

@@KibyNykraft Thanks for this comment! Now I have months or more worth of cool rabbit holing ahead of me😊.

The bane of every artist.

time is precious... that's why. why we don't value time the way it should be valued?

And think how long it would take all hand tools.

Right?

Not to be rude he spent several days building it plus cost of material why dont you try it i building sapphire and emerald chessboard and of which i made alot of costly mistakes it will give you a whole new out look on hand made item and their price

pandasalvesen1977, as a dane I can only agree

pandasalvesen1977 ~ok, gonna throw my hat in. 1/2 first-gen Latvian - 1/2 second-gen Norwegian. I think I may have found the first project of Spring. I have a bunch of maple scraps and possibly just enough walnut. Beautiful work. Cheers and thx for the idea!

I'm from near York, England (Viking capital of England) and now live in Shetland (Viking everything and including the island of Fetlar, home to the modern Hnefatafl world championships apparently) Greetings cousins ;-)

There aren't many times that both a Swede, a Norwegian and a Danish can agree on one thing without arguing with each other.

@@miniblasan5717 True, I'm a Norwegian had no idea this existed but now I'm gonna learn it

_"I can't imagine how much work went into this..."_ The video gives you a bit of an idea. 😜

@@nagualdesign yeh lol

And 3 1/2 people in the world can play the game.....isn’t that special? 😌😌😌😌😂

@@wescampbell1768 Oh dear Wes, just because it's new to you does not make it virtually unknown. The game is actually increasing in popularity, it's pretty popular amongst role playing gamers (like D&D for example). Please tell us that you are at least aware of Backgammon and Go ?

@@DexxBlue In my family we used to play it in the countryside cabins (Norway) some decades ago during for example easter holidays. It is cute for that but gets maybe a bit boring too soon for me. As un-vikingy as it sounds, chess is a bit more challenging on the internet or the national competitions once you run into really good players. I still occasionally play some tafl on the bus on the phone app (there is a Tablut or Tablus + one or two hnefatafl there now for the Android phones). Basically it was forgotten until the archeologists found it in one of the viking ships. It was after this that it took off a bit in some popularity but mostly in englishspeaking countries it seems. I don't know if the welsh have been playing Tawlbrdd all along. Maybe a few after year 1800 if so

I know in my heart all these words are English. I swear they look like English.

@@gionnifer "Repertoire" comes from similar French and Latin words meaning list/inventory, and is used to describe a set of practiced performances. www.etymonline.com/word/repertoire It's ok to nerd out on some things here and there, at least that's what I tell myself.

@Parzecb I hear ya bro! 😄

Nice to see you make good use of your Japanese plane! I am about to make a set of them for myself - your video was a great inspiration. Thanks!

Can you include a link to the rules you found? I've had a hard time finding a set that works well. Great video!

@@doolspin tafl.cyningstan.com/page/21/the-hnefatafl-board

@@doolspin Sorry about that, just added a link! ;)

@@jaust3r Thanks!

Rick Bagnall I actually own this game it’s quite a challenge & very fun I play it with my classmates at school

He's gone well beyond the craftsmanship of any of the extant finds, few as they are. This would be a gift fit for a Jarl!

There's a mobile app for this game !!

Me too! It's very entertaining

Thanks mate! It was a bit of a challenge! It’s actually is a great game to play! 😊

Really great work!

A Glimpse Inside I think Neil is one of the best makers on RU-vid period! He seems like a very decent bloke too.

I think Chris Clickspring would like to have a word with you... :D But yes, Neil is brilliant, and this is a cracking vid.

Mark McCluney I completely agree. One of the best absolutely

Rob Matthews Woodturning I put Chris in a league of his own brother. And yes they both make things with their hands however the craft is very much different in my opinion. He was I believe the third channel I ever subscribed to, and to pay him much respect I got one of the first fire Pistons he created. I actually have a video deep within my channel of me I’m boxing it!!

@@AGlimpseInside Yes, i dig it; i saw your unboxing (I'm subbed to you, of course!), and mad respect to you for the support of Chris. And yep, I agree, Chris is a craftsman. Calling him a maker is very much under-selling his work.

Unfortunatly the rules have been lost over the years.

Right?!?! That nifty little ditty, tho!! :-)

Ill put him in the top 10 but there some alsome wood carver and their a guy who make some alsome dragon rings and such of which i told him i hated him jokingly and wish i had a 1\4 of his skill but its because people like him and other i started making sapphire and emerald chessboard

I was gonna say it looked literally the same

@@Ethan-zt7ky I'm pretty sure in game it has a bit less board space and is called "tablut"

@@codeninja1832 Yeah its the Sámi version of the game, which actually had its rules recorded. Hnefetafl is reconstructed, partially based on the rules to Tablut, the rest inferred from the sagas and such.

Yes. The turkish game. Im proud of it. Bec im turkish

Was thinking the same thing, although there are also some significant differences too...

Yes it is the inspiration for THUD, but as you say there are differences - THUD sets can be purchased at; www.discworldemporium.com/games-activities/229-thud

Noooo, my attention is only max 10 minutes😁

It's not difficult to learn to play (it's much harder to spell!), but like chess, there is a huge amount of strategy involved once you become familiar with the game.

Present!

Here!

Beat Gryphor at this so hard he joined the Aserai

Yes its turkish game and im turkish

LESS POSTING, MOAR RAIDING!

We don't have perfect measuring tools.

Yup! I've played both. I have a Thud board, but not yet a Tafl one.

Original rules are lost to the ages but a logical reconstitution can be found on wikipedia.

The link worked for me: it produced a short PDF with what seems a fairly good description of the rules (but all text, no graphs).

@@LuisAldamiz Thanks for letting us know! I'm glad to see that it's been fixed.

The pieces to look like their helmets

@@jakubmusiolik1260 woosh

I'm rather curious as to how the king would react if the four refuge corner squares are guarded? No capture, no refuge. So the battle will always be at the center.

@@simpletongeek Good point. Presumably the pieces that guard the castles cannot be taken, since you can't position pieces either side of them.

@@nagualdesign some versions of the rules states that an empty refuge square can be used as anvil, but that can be easily covered by doubling up pawns.

@@simpletongeek I know that by "empty refuge squares" you mean the castles, but I can't imagine what you mean by "anvil". Also, pawns are from chess. I think these are called _attackers_ and _defenders,_ or simply _pieces._

@@nagualdesign hammer and anvil. As in one piece and the square acting together. Also, king and pawns are from chess, but you know what I mean. No problem.

love that you say viking blood and not scandinavian or icelandic XD

@@rubyphoenix4977 I'm actually norman wich translates to viking.

@@kaelinfinchum2690 Norman? or do you mean "Norrman"? that means northman, or a term in Swedish for Norwegian

phoeniPhoenix look it up I know what I am but you clearly do not lmao. My last name alone holds tales of my origin

@@kaelinfinchum2690 haha why are you namecalling? im just curious, besides the point i never said that i know what you are, thats why i asked. I am Swedish myself so it would have been nice to talk to a fellow viking