Fidchell : The Game of Celtic Legends

By Uilliam mac Eoin, Silversmith

Barony of Sun Dragon

Kingdom of Atenveldt

Fidchell (pronounced "fidth-kell") is one of the oldest games of Celtic origin. It is dates from at least the 7th century; however, the word fidchell means "wood-sense" in Old Irish – precisely the same meaning as the Old Welsh word gwyddbwyll . If these games are in fact one and the same, then fidchell dates back at least 2000 years into Celtic pre-history.

Some historians have translated fidchell as "chess", implying the games are the same, but fidchell predates the introduction of chess in Europe by at least five hundred years, so this is obviously impossible. A more reasonable (and more common) assumption is that fidchell is a variant of the well-studied tafl family of games, of which the Welsh game tawlbwrdd is a member. All of these games are descended from the original Norse game of tafl . As we shall see, however, this theory cannot be supported in light of existing literary evidence about the game. Throughout this discussion, I am deeply indebted to the work Eoin Mac White in his paper, "Early Irish Board Games" 1 and rely heavily on his sources. While little presented fundamentally disagrees with Mac White's analysis, I do extend his work by considering evidence that he does not. The end result is a playable and challenging game that both adheres to the evidence of the sagas, as well as reflects the culture of the age.

Board game scan be classed into three major groups: race games, such as Backgammon, in which the object to arrive at an objective before you opponent; chase games, such as Fox and Geese, in which the defender's objective is to escape the board, while the attacker must prevent him from doing so; and battle games, such as the Greek polis , the Roman ludus latrunculorum , and Nine Men's Morris ( Merrills, in Britain), in which the objective is the annihilation of your opponent's forces.

Tafl belongs to the chase game category. The attacker is given a certain number of pieces (which varies according to the variant of game being played); the defender is given exactly half this number of pieces plus a "king" which must escape the board without being captured. Capture can occur in various ways with enclosure (a defending piece surrounded on two or more sides by attacking pieces) being the most common. Pieces normally move in straight lines as does the Rook in chess. Indeed, Mac White's experimentation has shown that this is the only type of movement that yields a playable game in any situation that involves capture by enclosure. Finally, most varieties of tafl require the use of a die to randomly determine the number of spaces a piece may move.

Based on the above, it is easy to see why fidchell is often considered to be a variant of tafl . In the tale of Mac da Cherda and Cummaine Fota 2, Cummaine asks Guaire how the men in fidchell are slain. Cummaine responds, "Not hard, a black pair of mine about one white man of yours on the same line." Clearly this is capture by enclosure, with only two men required for success. In Eachtra Airt meic Cuind ocus Tochmarc Delbchaime ingine Morgain 3, Art is playing fidchell with his father's druid, who describes a capture as a "move of banishment", obviously referring to the removal of the piece after capture (though Mac White seems to feel this is some separate move of some type, although he offers no theories as to what it might be).

Clues as to the movement of the pieces come from Sanas Cormaic 4, wherein the board is described as having "rows which are straight". Furthermore, the poem Serlige Con Chulaind 5 makes references to "chariots, they climb the valley; behold their courses, like men in fidchell ". As Mac White points out, the logical arrangement for chariots to climb up a valley would be one after the other in a straight line.

The similarities to tafl end here, however. Unlike tafl , fidchell seems to have been played with equal numbers of pieces on each side. In Amra Columcille 6, we are told that Crimthann Nia Nar's fidchell board had half it's men of yellow gold and the other half of silver [or, perhaps, tinned bronze -- the interpretation is not clear]. Since all tafl games always have twice as many pieces on one side as the other (plus a king), there is no way that half could be one color and half another. Furthermore, even though fidchell is mentioned in a number of literary sources, there is no source that mentions dice or a king being used with the game at all.

There most important evidence, however, that fidchell is not a chase game, and therefore not a variant of tafl , comes from the descriptions we have of actual games being played. In the passage cited above in the tale of Mac da Cherda and Cummaine Fota , Cummaine the cleric balks at the idea of slaying Guaire's men. Neither, however, is he willing to sully his honor by simply throwing the match. Instead, he successfully evades Guaire's pieces for an entire day, neither capturing Guaire's men, nor allowing his own men to be captured, forcing, in effect a stalemate. Guaire describes the play as "champion-like", so clearly the object was the annihilation of the opponent's pieces. If either man had been trying to escape the board with a king, he would have simply done so and ended the match.

In Eachtra Airt meic Cuind ocus Tochmarc Delbchaime ingine Morgain , Art is playing with Becuma and at one point says, "The sid -folk are stealing the pieces from me, girl. It is not you who are winning, but they." The implication is that whether one is winning or losing is determined by how many pieces are captured, which makes no sense if the object is to escape the board.

The most important evidence, perhaps, comes from "The Dream of Rhonabwy" in the Mabinogion . King Arthur plays a game of fidchell against Owein, the opposing war leader. The battle between the two men reflects the battle raging between their forces. Neither leader was attempting to escape the battlefield; each was trying to eradicate his opponent.

From the above arguments, then, it is clear that fidchell belongs to the battle category of games and not the chase games. It is therefore more related to ludus latrunculorum or Nine Men's Morris than it is to tafl . This is not to say that fidchell derives from either of those games. It should not, however, be surprising that the games would be similar. All battle games teach essentially the same skills: strategy in deployment and the use of forces to surround an opponent and render his units inert. Recognizing fidchell as a battle game also allows some of its "missing rules" to be extrapolated. For example, there is no recorded start position for the game. Battle games, however, are typically played in two phases. Initially the board is empty, and players alternate placing their pieces in strategically-advantageous positions (mirroring the well-known military axiom that pre-deployment of forces prior to the onset of war will often determine victory or defeat in advance). Once all pieces are placed on the board, they are moved in position to attack, defend, or gain tactical advantage. If we use the guiding principle that battle games represent actual warfare, we can make a very good guess as to what any given "missing rule" should be. I will summarize a complete set of fidchell rules -- rules that do not conflict with the extant literary references, nor with the identification of fidchell as a battle game -- at the end of this paper.

What did the board and pieces look like? The odds are good that the both were chosen according to the tastes of their owners. We have a number of descriptions of the fidchell boards of royalty and heroes. Aillil and Maeve, the king and queen of Connaught , possessed a board described in "The Cattle Raid of Froech" 7 as being of white gold with edges and corners in gold and pieces of gold and silver. In the Mabinogion 's "Dream of Rhonabwy", King Arthur's board was silver with pieces of gold, though clearly the pieces had to be of different colors. The Amra Columcille states that Crimthann Nia Nar's board was so heavy that a "small boy could not lift it with one hand". None of these boards may have been a typical fidchell board; in fact such a "typical" board may not have existed. All that we know for certain is Sanas Cormaic 's assertion that the boards were "four-sided...its rows straight, and black and white [pieces] on it." Everything else would seem to be optional, with boards likely gilded in accordance with the status of its owner. How many squares did the boards have? This gives rise to the related question, "How many pieces did the game have?" Experimentation by Mac White has shown that whatever size the board, the optimal number of pieces is always equal to the number of squares in a horizontal row on the board. In other words, an 8 x 8 board would have eight pieces, a 12 x 12 board would have twelve, etc. Earlier battle games, such as polis and ludus latrunculorum had no fixed board size; they could be played on any size board the players desired. There is a minimum size, however, below which the tactical options become so limited as to cease to have meaning. That number is generally going to be 7 x 7, although Nine Men's Morris is played on a 3 x 3 board (but with greatly restricted movement options). Clearly the game was played with at least five pieces, as in Echtrai Nerai 8, Fergus hurls five captured men at Bricriu's head, causing him permanent injury.

The Ballinderry game board, found in 1932 during an excavation of the Ballinderry crannog in West Meath , Ireland (see figure 1 at the end of this paper) 9, dates from the tenth century and is a 7 x 7 board. While some scholars have argued that it is a fidchell board, it is equally likely that it is a tafl board. Interestingly, the board has pegs holes instead of squares, much like a modern travel chessboard. No literary source, however, explicitly mentions that the board is composed of squares. In fact, Sanas Cormaic specifically tells us that its rows are straight, not that its squares are straight. It could very well be that rows referred to are rows of holes, not of squares. The corners of the Ballinderry board are set off with quarter-circles, while the center peg is surrounded by two concentric circles. This may be nothing more than decoration, but in tafl , the center square could represent the starting position of the king, while in fidchell , the corners are the only safe places on the board (and therefore highly defensible), while the center spot is the most strategically prime location from which to launch any assault, so controlling it in the early game is paramount.

Originally, I had intended to follow the description of Queen Maeve's board from "The Cattle Raid of Froech" for my board. I was unable to locate sufficient quantities of white gold anywhere at any of the city's silver and goldsmith shops. I was struck, however, by the simple artistry of the Ballinderry board. The knotwork around the edges add an elegancy to what was likely an otherwise common board. What, I wondered, would the Ballinderry board have looked like if it had been owned by royalty such as Queen Maeve? What you see before you is my interpretation.

The pegs have been replaced with hand-forged beads of silver. The knotwork around the edges has been preserved, but has also been hand-created out of silver. The corners and center are marked by twisted silver wire. The board itself is slate on marble, making it easily heavier than "a small boy could lift with one hand".

The only description of the pieces themselves is found in Aislinge Meic Conglinne 10 as "smooth, speckled, peaked". While normal, everyday pieces might have enough heft to cause permanent damage when used as missiles, I envision a queen's fidchell set as being something more delicate. These pieces, half of silver, half of gold (actually 14k gold filled wrapped around a base metal to increase the diameter of the wire), are my interpretation of that description, and they reflect the patterns found in the board. The wire is smooth, but the twisted wire gives a "speckled" appearance as they rise to a peak. Each of these pieces was hand-crafted using period techniques, with the exception that a propane pencil torch was used instead of a bellows for safety.

Fidchell is a fascinating game. The rules, as recovered here, are simple to learn and understand. The strategies that result from these rules, however, are as infinite as they are intricate. Above all, the game simulates the strategic and tactical concerns of battle very accurately -- and less abstractly than such modern games as chess. Finally, as can be seen here, the game can be as pleasing to the eye as it is to the mind. I hope that you enjoy playing it as much as I have researching and crafting it.

The Rules of Fidchell

Deployment Phase

• Each player has seven identical pieces, none of which begin on the board.
• Players alternate placing their pieces anywhere on the board, one at a time. The person placing pieces first will move last. It is irrelevant whether silver or gold places first.
• A piece may not be placed between two of the opponent's pieces, as this would cause that piece's elimination (see "Capturing" below)
• If at any time a piece has two enemy pieces on either side of it (horizontally or vertically, but not diagonally), that piece is removed from the board. This teaches the military maneuvers of "flank" and "ambush".
• Pieces may be captured during deployment phase, but only if the attacking pieces are not also lost. (Troops in fidchell are too scare and valuable for "suicide attacks" -- and a good general will find a way to win the battle and bring his men home.)
• Once all pieces are on the board, the movement phase begins.

Movement Phase

• The player who placed pieces last in the deployment phase moves first.
• Pieces may be moved in straight horizontal or vertical rows, as many spaces as desired, exactly like the rook's move in chess.
• As above, if a player moves his piece so that an enemy piece is surrounded on two sides in a horizontal or vertical line, the enemy piece is eliminated.
• The first player to have all pieces eliminated loses the game. (However, a player may surrender when left with only one piece, as it is then impossible for him to win.)

Figure 1. The Ballinderry Board

References

1 Mac White, Eoin (1945). “Early Irish Board Games” in Eigse, Volume V . National University of Ireland .

2 O'Keefe (ed.). Eriu, v, p.32.

3 O'Keefe (ed.). Eriu , iii, p.162, #17.

4 Meyer, Anec . iv, p. 50

5 Dillon, Myles (ed.) (1942). 11, 405-6.

6 Rev. Celt , xx, p. 283

7 Bryne, M. and Dillon, Myles (eds.). Tain Bo Fraich , ll. 88-93.

8 Irische Texte , ll. 7794-7843.

9 Hencken (1993). “A Gaming Board of the Viking Age”, Acta Archaeologica iv, p. 85.

10 Meyer (ed.), p. 69, 25-6.