Hull Hnefatafl Tournament 2017

[cyningstan]

I'm giving some early publicity for a hnefatafl event next year, so if anyone here is interested it gives you time to make some travel plans.

I'll be hosting a Hnefatafl tournament in Hull on Saturday 17th June 2017. That falls during Hull's year as the UK City of Culture, so there'll be plenty of other things going on in the city. The tournament will be held at the Hull and East Riding Museum. The museum specialises in the archaeological history of the local area. Exhibits include gaming pieces, including a hnefatafl piece. The museum has quite a few hnefatafl pieces in its stores, which I hope to persuade them to bring out on the day of the tournament.

The rules used for the tournament will be tablut. They are similar to the rules in use here, the only difference being that the king cannot return to the castle once he has left it. The museum is open from 10:00 till 17:00, so I plan to do a teaching session between 10:00 and 11:00, the tournament itself between 11:00 and 16:00 (with an hour for lunch in there somewhere) and prize giving from 16:00 to 17:00.

Depending on the number of people travelling from afar and how many of them are around on Friday 16th, I will probably book a table for a welcome meal on the evening before the tournament. For those staying the night there will be the opportunity for a post-tournament meal and social gathering in one of the historic pubs in the area. Firmer plans will be made nearer the time when I have a better idea of how many people will be coming.

The tournament has a web page on Hnefatafl: the Game of the Vikings. That page has a link to an email list that you can subscribe to; I'll be posting monthly updates there until nearer the time. There's also a Facebook event for people who are that way inclined. I'll no doubt be posting further information here about it too

[Tuireann]

I'm giving some early publicity for a hnefatafl event next year, so if anyone here is interested it gives you time to make some travel plans.

I am already planning on attending; having a fair few mates along that latitude in England they have volunteered their spare room/couches to me in case of a visit so I really can't pass up a chance to play my favorite variant!

Depending on the number of people travelling from afar and how many of them are around on Friday 16th, I will probably book a table for a welcome meal on the evening before the tournament. For those staying the night there will be the opportunity for a post-tournament meal and social gathering in one of the historic pubs in the area.

Unfortunately my friends live on the west side of the Island so I will likely only attend on Saturday unless my inept American brain figures out the public transport system of the UK and the timetables under which it operates allows it. Being an American I am eager to learn of public transport and bring environmentalism to my people...

Very interested in the Historic Pubbing... Few pints... A little Tafl... So I may make plans to stay in town that night.

The rules used for the tournament will be tablut. They are similar to the rules in use here, the only difference being that the king cannot return to the castle once he has left it.

The ole forbidden throne eh? Going Linnaeus style? Linnaeian capture? I might throw up a rated variant on my site for this rule set to practice a bit!

The museum specialises in the archaeological history of the local area. Exhibits include gaming pieces, including a hnefatafl piece. The museum has quite a few hnefatafl pieces in its stores, which I hope to persuade them to bring out on the day of the tournament.

Very much interested in seeing Tafl pieces. Do they have the common onion style pieces? I hope you can encourage them to put their collection of game pieces on display.

Fyrir Ast Tafl,
Tuireann

[cyningstan]

Unfortunately my friends live on the west side of the Island so I will likely only attend on Saturday unless my inept American brain figures out the public transport system of the UK and the timetables under which it operates allows it. Being an American I am eager to learn of public transport and bring environmentalism to my people...

The train service is certainly adequate to get you from West to East and back without much fuss, especially if you book the tickets in advance. Liverpool to Hull is about three hours each way, Manchester is two hours and no changes. If you send me an email I can find out particulars.

Very interested in the Historic Pubbing... Few pints... A little Tafl... So I may make plans to stay in town that night.

The tournament's in the right place. Just up the street is a building that's been a pub most of the time since 1729. Called Ye Olde Black Boy, still in this day and age.

The ole forbidden throne eh? Going Linnaeus style? Linnaeian capture? I might throw up a rated variant on my site for this rule set to practice a bit!

Thanks for reminding me about that Linnaean capture rule. I don't think it's used here on this site, so that's another difference.

Very much interested in seeing Tafl pieces. Do they have the common onion style pieces? I hope you can encourage them to put their collection of game pieces on display.

From what I remember, and it was ten years ago that I was invited to see the behind-the-scenes pieces, most of them were cylindrical. I half remember an onion-shaped piece from an archaeological report, but my faulty memory may be remembering a similar report about the pieces at York.

The piece on display is an oddity, shaped very much like a crown: cylindrical, about 25mm across, with teeth on the upper edge. I think it was at one time assumed to be a chess rook until more was known about hnefatafl.

[cyningstan]

I thought it high time I let people here know that there's an event leaflet available for the Hull Hnefatafl tournament. As well as giving the event details, I managed to squeeze the game rules on there too.

You can download the leaflet here.