Hnefatafl as a Family Tree

Friday, 18th July 2014

I've wanted to do a hnefatafl timeline for about a year now, and still haven't got around to doing it. But in the mean time, I had another idea: a family tree.

What made me think of this are the two most extreme opinions about the authenticity of hnefatafl: one the one hand we have people who think that, for example, ard ri was played in such-and-such a way by mediaeval Scots, while others think that hnefatafl is a modern game that new-age pagans have invented out of nothing.

Another thing that brought me close to this idea is the obvious line of descent to some versions of hnefatafl, such as Copenhagen hnefatafl, which was descended from Fetlar hnefatafl, which was descended from The Viking Game, and so on.

The document I've put together is rather hasty, undecorated and currently not very well annotated. When time allows, I hope to create a more informative version of this, maybe adding more hnefatafl versions if I know where the inspiration came from.

You can read more about it on its own download page, which explains the layout: http://tafl.cyningstan.com/download/1017/hnefatafl-family-tree