Lost: Marbles, reward if found...

I have been putting off this post for some time, and I will tell you for why. The trouble with a post on marbles is the same as that with one on balls, playing cards, or the opposite sex; these are things we play games with, rather than games in and of themselves.

So, for my first ever attempt at making a medieval game I thought I'd be as simple as possible. And what could be more simple than a sphere! Yeah, okay, I know, I know.

Period Pieces.

According to posterity* marbles are as old as the hills, literally. Marbles games have been played since vaguely round stones could be found in streams or made from clay. They have been played for thousands of years with examples being found on archaeological sites across the ancient world, from t'Egypt to Pakistan.

So marbles are old then?

Right for the medieval period, certainly. At this time the majority of marbles available to a peasant like me would be of clay; agates did exist but were expensive and glass not happening until the Renaissance.

The game of Three Holes, played
here with four holes. Bloody Flems
confusing matters.

So what of playing marbles? Well, we can't be sure exactly what they games they played with marbles but it is almost certain there would have been more than one. The Bruegel painting seems to show a game which has been called Three Holes, which is a simple target game with a number of holes, although I forget now how many.

But in order to draw in the parents who probably played marbles themselves I tend to show the most common "Game of Marbles", when demonstrating.

How to play.

You have two types of marbles, mibs (the little ones) and shooters  (the big ones). The rules are really simple you draw a circle on the ground or in the dirt (I make the circle smaller in this instance), pour in the mibs (retrieving any that might fall out) then attempt to knock them out of the circle with the shooters. How you hold/throw/flick the shooter depends on you, although it's best to come to some agreement among the players. Players score one point for each marble knocked out, or double points for knocking out more than one in a single shot. There, that wasn't to hard now was it. 

Of course the tendency among school boys in years past was rather than taking score was to 'play for keeps'. Which I believe is where we get the expression.

 Making Medieval Marbles

So I figured that the simplest solution was to employ some air drying clay roll it into balls of roughly even size, lay them out to dry, and Bob's your mother's brother. It sounds so simple doesn't it! And yet how utterly and buttock clenchingly frustrating is it to try and roll a perfect sphere, especially when you keep flinging them at the wall. In the end you either have to buy them in, or compromise. 

Things to remeber for next time include;

• Wet the clay before use to meld the clay and give an even surface.
• Clay marbles are much lighter than glass ones, so have less momentum to knock each other out of the circle which makes for a slower game.
• Don't forget to make a few shooters as well as the mibs.

Tablas Bar

Hello, again, perishinkers. Time for another game of yesteryear with yer auld Uncle Bilbo. And hasn't it been ages?! How're you? How's your old Dad?

This time I'm turning my pyrography pen on a member of one of the oldest family of games which will be known here and ever after as tables. The member of this family that survives down to us is backgammon, a version that certainly already existed in the middle-ages and is listed in Alfonso X's book of games as Todas Tablas. 

Incidentally, I read in an actual book, and not just on t'internet, that the name backgammon is actually Welsh from bach - little and garthan - battle. [Cue swell of national pride, chest out to the tune of Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau. SFX of record scratching to a stop and return to reality]. Unfortunately this does not stand up to any scrutiny. Books! Feeding misinformation since before the Internet.

But I, along with most other humans who are human, can never remember the proper set up of backgammon so instead I either introduce the game using the rules of the Roman game Tabula or, more recently I use the set up and rules of the first of these games in the Alfonoso MS, Quinze Tablas or Fifteen Pieces. 

Illustration from Alfonso X, (a distant ancestor of Malcolm?)

Quinze Tablas; 

The set up for this is as above, the rules have much in common with backgammon and below I present, for your delectation and delight, my interpretation of these rules.

Yellow plays clockwise,
red anti-clockwise.

• You have three dice. Roll them. There, didn't that feel good? Now, these dice all count individually so you can split them among your pieces. eg. The gentleman in the blue above has rolled 1, 2 and 4. Now he can move three pieces, the first 1, the second 2, and the third 4 spaces. He could move the same piece 1, then 2, then 4 spaces. But he can't just move the same piece 7 spaces, it has to be done in stages, and if something blocks one of the stops along the way. 
• The two players move in opposite directions around the board until they have moved all their pieces to the last space (6th) of the board. They earn 1 point for each piece born off the which arrives on their 6 space. So each player can earn fifteen points you say? Not a bit of it. Get ready for the twist. 
• You can move your pieces to any empty space or any space occupied by any number of your own pieces. If the space is occupied by two or more opposing pieces you cannot land on it, which is what restricts your movement when combined with counting dice individually above. I will return to this issue below. 
• To borrow a term from modern backgammon a lone piece on a square is a 'blot'. If you land on an opponent's blot with an exact dice roll, you can take it and unlike in backgammon, that piece is permanently out of play, gone, forget about it. Which is tricky because in order to finish you need to score a minimum of six points, so it is possible to win without finishing all your pieces if you reduce your opponent down to five pieces. 
• Although it does not specify it in the original MS, play must cease when a player delivers the last of his pieces to his 6 space. This is when the points are totted up so the player who ends the game is not necessarily the winner. 
• There is one other possible outcome; if; as mentioned above, both players find themselves unable to move in consecutive turns due to blocked spaces, then a draw is immediately declared and any points that may have been scored up to that point are declared null and void. 

A player's 6 space is on the opposite side to their beginning.

This is at least how I read the rules, so by no means definitive I think we could call it definitive for now. I would be tempted to agree with my opponent to play to a set number of points, say thirty or fifty, and play a number of games until the goal is reached. 

To close, I promise I'll write sooner this time, my love. Until then, Darling I promise you this, I'll send you all my love, everyday in a letter, and seal it with a kiss. Or possibly not.

Update

Oops, in my rush to get this post out I forgot to tell you about my board. And that's what all this is supposed to be about ain't it? The board I've elected to show is not the most elaborate or traditional chevron-ed job, instead I've gone for one found carved into stonework in Norwich Castle in works in or before 1892. Norwich Castle was used as a prison, so the suspicion for carving the board obviously fell on the prisoners. However the board was in such an inaccessible spot that it was concluded that the only people who could possibly be responsible were the original builders or masons working at the castle. You can picture them knocking off early or skiving round a corner with a mug of small beer and their wages. So if the building work on your new kitchen or extension comes to an inexplicable standstill, the workers sitting around with pints of tea and the Racing Post; they're not slacking off, they're Traditionalists! Engaging in an age old ritual that has gone on for hundreds of years. I'd let them get on with it I were you, it's an ancient mystery.