HNEFATAFEL
Hnefatafel is a board with nine squares to each side. On the board, two armies fight each other. In the centre, the black army stands around its King. The King has to flee from his castle in the centre of the board, to any of the four castles on the board ´s corners. The white soldiers attack, with the aim to capture and kill the King. The game is pretty simple, but can be very dramatic. A nine-year-old can play it, but adults like it too.
Hnefatafel was very popular in the Nordic countries during the Middle Ages. The game is mentioned in the Icelandic sagas from the 13th century. The word hnefatafel is Icelandic; hnefi means king and tafel is the board. Counters have been found in different places in the Nordic countries. The game of chess became very popular when it came to the Nordic countries during the early Middle Ages. It is said, that this was so, because people were used to playing hnefatafel. Another name for hnefatafel is tablut (board), a name used by the Sami people as late as in the 18th century.
BACKGAMMON
Backgammon was popular among the townspeople. Today people play this game all over the world. The purpose of the game is to move one’s counters around the board and eventually back to the place where one started. The medieval rules were not quite the same as the ones we have today.
Other medieval kinds of board games are chess, draughts and the mill game. You will find a description of the mill game under "Country Life. Workdays and Holidays".
CARD GAMES
We know that at the end of the 14th century, they played cards in the towns in southern Europe. Probably not many years passed before people in the north knew about card games, too. The medieval pack of cards had 52 cards, just like today. The cards were numbered from one to ten, and had one king and two knights with different values. The suits were often represented by jars or cups, coins, swords and clubs. Diamonds, spades, hearts and clubs - the colours of today - were not used until in the 15th century. Normally, people played for money, but the stakes were not allowed to be too high.