Names of different variants of tafl include hnefatafl, tablut, tawlbwrdd, brandubh, Ard Rí, and alea evangelii.

Games in the tafl family were played in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Britain, Ireland, and Sápmi.

New rules were added to amend the issues resulting from these errors, leading to the creation of a modern family of tafl games.

[12][13] Alea evangelii, which means "game of the gospels",[14] was described, with a drawing, in the 12th-century Corpus Christi College, Oxford manuscript 122, from Anglo-Saxon England.

The manuscript describes the layout of the board as a religious allegory, but it is clear that this was a game in the Tafl family.

[21][22][23] Despite its small size board and the speed of the games, Brandubh offers an undeniable tactical and strategic exercise where the first mistake very often leads to defeat.

The small number of pieces means that each of them must often simultaneously defend and attack: it is therefore easy to forget one of these tasks if one focuses too much on the other.

[24] Hnefatafl (sometimes now referred to as Viking chess)[25] was a popular game in medieval Scandinavia and was mentioned in several of the Norse sagas.

[28] Hnefatafl became a popular game in Northern Europe during the Viking era (end of the 8th century to 1000 CE), a turbulent time full of conflicts.

When chess became a popular game during the Middle Ages, the rules of hnefatafl were forgotten over time.

Hnefatafl literally translates to "fist table", from the Old Norse (equivalently in modern Icelandic) hnef, 'fist', and tafl, 'table'.

Unfortunately, the rules were poorly translated from Latin and gave unbalanced gameplay, mainly due to the mistaken idea that the king must be surrounded on four sides to be captured – instead of two.

[31] Today, many different versions of modern hnefatafl are in play – both online and on physical boards that are sold commercially.

[34] Carl Linnaeus recorded the rules of tablut and a drawing of the board and pieces in his journal, during his 1732 "Expedition to Lapland" where he travelled in the area of the Lule Sámi – along the Lule River on the Swedish side of the border, and in Salten on the Dano-Norwegian side of the border.

The following rules are based on the modern translations of John C. Ashton (2007), Nicolas Cartier (2011) and Olli Salmi (2013):[30] This variant (pronounced [ˈtau̯lbʊrð]) was played in Wales.

In Orkeyinga saga, the notability of Hnefatafl is evident in the nine boasts of Jarl Rögnvald Kali Kolsson, who tops his list with skill at Tafl.

[50] In Friðþjófs Saga, a conversation over a game of Hnefatafl reveals that the king's men are red and the attackers white, and that the word hnefi does indeed refer to the kingpiece.

[51] The most revealing – and yet most ambiguous – clues to Hnefatafl lie in a series of riddles posed by a character identified as Odin in disguise (see Gestumblindi) in the Saga of Hervör and Heidrek.

[52] One may also note that the assignment of the colours of brown or red to the defenders and fair or white to the attackers is consistent with Friðþjófs Saga.

One example was a wooden board and a single gaming piece made of horn found in a ship burial at Gokstad in southeastern Norway.

A gaming board dated to the 8th century or earlier, was dug up in 2018 at the site of the later Scottish Monastery of Deer.

[58] As another example, a small worked glass piece was discovered in 2019 on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, target of a famous Viking raid in 793 A.D.

However, this is believed to be due to wood readily being destroyed by cremation fires or decaying over time.

[citation needed] The first major attempt to revitalize tafl was the publication of "The Viking Game" in 1981.

This was essentially the Sámi game tablut of the 1700s, as mistranslated by Troilius in 1811, and with the modern innovation that the king's escape possibilities were limited to the corners.

The latter was done in order to compensate for the imbalanced gameplay resulting from the notion that the king must be surrounded on all four sides.

The term "quickplay" refers to the time limit of ten seconds per move, marked by the sounding of a gong.

[62] After the rules for tablut were retranslated and published online (2007–2013), this historical game has also gained in popularity.

Aage Nielsen created his site in 1998, and currently hosts the World Tafl Federation Hnefatafl Championship Tournament.

Variants of tafl playable online today include Copenhagen Hnefatafl, Tablut, and many others.