What Brandubh Is
Brandubh is the smallest of the tafl games on this site: a 7 by 7 board with a king and four defenders in the center and eight attackers around them, 13 pieces against 37 in our 11 by 11 hnefatafl. The king wins by reaching a corner. The name is borrowed from an Irish board game, brandub, that medieval Irish texts mention. Its rules are lost. What this page plays is a modern rule set, the World Tafl Federation's brandubh rules, and the sections below mark which parts rest on evidence and which do not.
What Is Known About the Irish Game
Very little. The Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language defines brandub as the "Name of a board-game (associated with fidchell and búanbach)." For fidchell, the better-known Irish board game, it adds that the word is usually rendered as chess, "but the rules are unknown." That association is about as far as the dictionary can go.
The most concrete line comes from Acallam na Senórach, which describes a brandub of cuiciur airgit gil can glór ocus ochtur do dergór, five of bright silver and eight of red gold. Five and eight make thirteen, which happens to match a king and four defenders against eight. That fit is an inference, not something the text says. No Irish text gives the board as 7 by 7, and none mentions a king piece.
The Welsh Sister Game
Wales had a game of the same family, the tawlbwrdd. The medieval Welsh laws, printed by Aneurin Owen in his Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales (1841), say that the judge of the court receives from the king a taulburth o ascurn moruyl, which Owen translates as a "throw-board" of the bone of a sea-animal. Another section values the king piece as much as eight men, which suggests a king and eight against 16, though the text gives neither that count nor the board size.
Robert ap Ifan's manuscript of 1587, as transcribed by F.R. Lewis in 1943, describes a king in the middle with 12 men next to him and 24 lying in wait to catch him, and the drawing with it is reported as 11 by 11. In the Welsh laws, in ap Ifan and in Linnaeus's tablut of 1732 the attackers are about twice the defenders. No Norse text gives numbers at all.
The Ballinderry Board
The reason brandubh is played on 7 by 7 is archaeological, not literary. The Ballinderry gaming board in the National Museum of Ireland is the only complete board of the period with a known grid. The museum describes it as "laid out in a grid of peg holes with the centre and corner holes marked off with circular arcs." There are 49 holes, so the grid is 7 by 7, with a marked center and marked corners in the places where the modern game has its throne and its corners. The board is yew, with eight carved interlace panels, two of them in the Scandinavian Borre style. It was found at a crannog at Ballinderry in County Westmeath, a site occupied from the late 9th to the 11th century.
Borre ornament used to be tied to the Isle of Man, but the museum thinks the board was probably made in Ireland, most likely in Dublin. Two fragments from Dublin are also seven wide. Ballinderry gives us the board. It does not give the pieces, the starting position or a single rule.
Irish, Welsh and English Relatives
The one complete board was probably made in Ireland, in a Scandinavian art style. The Old English, Welsh and Irish board games had their own names and look like native relatives of the Norse game. A 12th-century Irish gospel book (Corpus Christi College Oxford MS 122) draws the Alea evangelii, a 19 by 19 game of the same pattern, and its heading says that Dub Innse, bishop of Bangor, brought it "from the house of Æthelstan, king of the English." The games resemble each other. Who learned from whom is not known.
How to Play Brandubh
The game here follows the modern World Tafl Federation brandubh rules. The federation's rule sheet casts the king's side as an Irish king, which it calls the branan, with four princes, the attackers as eight Viking invaders, and the corners as the four Irish provinces. That framing is modern too.
The opening position. The king sits on the throne at the center with one defender touching each side of him, a small cross of five. The eight attackers form a larger cross around it, two on each arm, reaching to the edge. The attackers open the game. A piece slides straight along its row or column for as many empty squares as it likes, and it can neither turn nor hop over anything.
The five special squares. The throne and the four corners belong to the king: no other piece may end its move on one. Once the king has left the throne, any piece may cross it. Our reading: the king may go back to his throne; the sheet implies this without saying it.
Capturing. A piece pinned on a row or column between two enemies, or between an enemy and a hostile square, is captured, but only when the opponent's move closes the pincer, so you may move between two enemies safely. Up to three pieces can fall in one move. The corners are hostile to everyone, the king included. The throne is always hostile to the attackers, hostile to the defenders only when the king is not on it, and never hostile to the king. Any piece can capture, the king too. Our choice: the board edge is not hostile, since the sheet lists only the throne and the corners.
The king. On his throne the king is taken only when attackers stand on all four sides. Everywhere else he is captured like any other piece, between two attackers or between an attacker and a corner. That includes the squares next to the throne, because the throne never counts against him. Getting the king onto any corner square wins for the defenders.
Other endings. Ringing in the king together with every defender he has left also wins for the attackers, as long as the ring does not lean on the board edge; the way the computer checks that is our own method. A player who cannot move loses. The sheet forbids perpetual repetition and says that when a position comes up a third time, the player who had the choice of repeating it loses. Our reading: that is the player whose move makes the third repetition. The sheet names no draw. Our choice: the game is drawn once 80 moves by each side, 160 in all, pass without a capture. There is no shieldwall and no edge fort. The sheet plays a full game as two sets with the sides swapped; our game plays one at a time and lets you choose your side.
The Linnaeus and saga material behind these games is listed, with editions, on our tafl sources and corrections page, and the Irish and Welsh texts are linked where they are quoted above.
Brandubh FAQ
What is brandubh?
Brandubh is a small tafl game on a 7 by 7 board: a king and four defenders in the center against eight attackers. The king wins by reaching a corner, the attackers by capturing or encircling him. The name comes from brandub, an Irish board game mentioned in medieval texts whose rules are lost, so the rules played today are a modern rule set.
How do you play brandubh?
The attackers move first. Pieces move like rooks, any distance along a row or column. A piece trapped between two enemies, or between an enemy and a corner or the empty throne, is removed; attackers can also be trapped against the throne while the king sits on it. The king is taken between two attackers or between an attacker and a corner, never against the throne, and on his throne he needs attackers on all four sides. The king wins on reaching any corner.
Are these the original Irish rules of brandub?
No. No Irish text gives the rules, the board size or even a king piece. The 7 by 7 board comes from the Ballinderry gaming board in the National Museum of Ireland, and the rules are the modern World Tafl Federation set. Where that sheet is silent, our game makes its own choices, such as a draw after 160 moves without a capture.
Why is brandubh played on a 7 by 7 board?
Because of the Ballinderry board, the only complete board from the period with a known grid. It has 49 peg holes in a 7 by 7 grid, with the center and corner holes marked. The museum thinks it was most likely made in Dublin. The board shows the grid but gives no rules.
Where did the Irish tafl games come from?
No one knows. The one complete board was probably made in Ireland, most likely in Dublin, in a Scandinavian art style. Irish, Welsh and Old English board games had their own names and look like native relatives of the Norse game. The games resemble each other; who learned from whom is not known.
Is brandubh a good way to learn tafl?
It is the smallest way in. With 13 pieces on 49 squares a game is short, and the main ideas are the same as in the larger tafl games: rook moves, capture by trapping between two, and a king who must escape. The king is easier to capture than in Copenhagen hnefatafl, so the defenders have to guard him more closely.