Viking chess

Today, my wife and I went to the local May Fayre with her friend, her friend's daughter (Buffy's owner) and her friend's daughter's friend. As I often mentioned them and I need to find them a nickname to make things easier, I will call them from now on the trio of Valkyries. Even by reading the title of this post, you can guess why I had this inspiration for this name...

Because there was at the May Fayre a Viking display, with people reenacting Viking fights and so on. As my wife and her friend were having Pimm's (their first of the year), the two girls wandered around the fayre with me the responsible adult (hum, hum!) and they ended up at the Viking display. Various artifacts were The girls were fascinated by the drinking horn and the small dice and many trivial things, but I was fascinated by this board. The woman at the display explained that it was a Viking chess board, also called Tafl. There is a king in the middle, surrounded by his guards. When you play the pieces on the edge, your aim is to capture/attack the king, if you play the pieces at the center it is to protect the king. From the researches I made, there seems to be no clear rules we kept from the time it was played. Oh and there is a dragon on the board, although I wonder how authentic this is. In any case, the dragon adds to the coolness. The woman told me that you can still buy Tafl boards. It is now one of my new projects: find one, buy it, play it.