After a long search I finally found a research subject that’s fun and exciting enough to pursue in my free time: Board games in Celtic and Old Norse stories. They are mentioned quite often and I want to look at the role they play in the story. When are they introduced, what is said about them, why are they played? I’ve already found quite some source material (ok, not necessarily much on my specific topic, but there’s a lot on board games in general and of course games like Hnefatafl, Alea Evangelii and Tawlbrwdd are at least mentioned).
The most amusing source I found was a recent new series on BBC 4: Games Britannia presented by Benjamin Wooley. The first episode is called “Dicing with Destiny” and is largely about a quite recently found ‘Druid game’ – as it was found in a druid’s grave – the Stanway Game. It was found completely intact and the pieces were placed as if the players were still in the middle of a game. Exciting! It also covers Alea Evangelii, which is a medieval game based on the Viking Hnefatafl, so I was bouncing in front of the tv when we were watching it.
