Irish Chess - History

History

Fidchell is mentioned quite often in ancient Celtic legends and lore, but the exact form of the game is open to speculation, due to the lack of detail on the rules, playing pieces, and even the board. What is clear is that it was played on a board, with opposing sets of pieces in equal numbers. It should not be confused with games like tawlbwrdd or tafl (also called hnefatafl), which involved a king in the center and pieces in a 2:1 ratio. One text reads, "‘Leth a fóirni d'ór buidi, in leth aili d'findruine,’ ‘Half its men were of yellow gold, the other half of tinned bronze," showing that fidchell was played by equal forces. The Roman board game latrunculi ("little soldiers") was also played with pieces of equal numbers; latrunculi is known from post-Roman Britain, and so it is possible that fidchell was a descendent of latrunculi.

The legends describe fidchell as a game played by royalty, and even the gods. According to the Irish it was invented by Lugh, the Irish god of light, and was played very skillfully by his son, the hero Cúchulainn. A series of fidchell games also forms an important episode in Tochmarc Étaíne.

Lavish, sometimes mystical gwyddbwyll boards appear often in medieval Welsh literature. In The Dream of Rhonabwy, a prose tale associated with the Mabinogion, King Arthur and Owain mab Urien play the game with golden men on a silver board. In another prose tale, The Dream of Macsen Wledig, The character Eudaf Hen is carving men for his golden board when he is visited by the emperor Magnus Maximus. The board of Gwenddoleu ap Ceidio is named as one of the Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain in lists dating from the 15th and 16th centuries; according to the lists the board is gold and the men silver, and the pieces play against each other automatically. A magic gwyddbwyll comparable to Gwenddoleu's appears in the Arthurian romance Peredur son of Efrawg; a number of French versions of the Holy Grail story feature similar chessboards with self-moving pieces, following the Second Continuation of Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail, though in these only one side moves, while the hero plays the other.