"I cannot do't without counters."
_Winter's Tale_, iv. 3.
Puzzles of this class, except so far as they occur in connection with
actual games, such as chess, seem to be a comparatively modern
introduction. Mathematicians in recent times, notably Vandermonde and
Reiss, have devoted some attention to them, but they do not appear to
have been considered by the old writers. So far as games with counters
are concerned, perhaps the most ancient and widely known in old times is
"Nine Men's Morris" (known also, as I shall show, under a great many
other names), unless the simpler game, distinctly mentioned in the works
of Ovid (No. 110, "Ovid's Game," in _The Canterbury Puzzles_), from
which "Noughts and Crosses" seems to be derived, is still more ancient.
In France the game is called Marelle, in Poland Siegen Wulf Myll
(She-goat Wolf Mill, or Fight), in Germany and Austria it is called
Muhle (the Mill), in Iceland it goes by the name of Mylla, while the
Bogas (or native bargees) of South America are said to play it, and on
the Amazon it is called Trique, and held to be of Indian origin. In our
own country it has different names in different districts, such as Meg
Merrylegs, Peg Meryll, Nine Peg o'Merryal, Nine-Pin Miracle, Merry Peg,
and Merry Hole. Shakespeare refers to it in "Midsummer Night's Dream"
(Act ii., scene 1):--
"The nine-men's morris is filled up with mud;
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,
For lack of tread, are undistinguishable."
It was played by the shepherds with stones in holes cut in the turf.
John Clare, the peasant poet of Northamptonshire, in "The Shepherd Boy"
(1835) says:--"Oft we track his haunts .... By nine-peg-morris nicked
upon the green." It is also mentioned by Drayton in his "Polyolbion."
It was found on an old Roman tile discovered during the excavations at
Silchester, and cut upon the steps of the Acropolis at Athens. When
visiting the Christiania Museum a few years ago I was shown the great
Viking ship that was discovered at Gokstad in 1880. On the oak planks
forming the deck of the vessel were found boles and lines marking out
the game, the holes being made to receive pegs. While inspecting the
ancient oak furniture in the Rijks Museum at Amsterdam I became
interested in an old catechumen's settle, and was surprised to find the
game diagram cut in the centre of the seat--quite conveniently for
surreptitious play. It has been discovered cut in the choir stalls of
several of our English cathedrals. In the early eighties it was found
scratched upon a stone built into a wall (probably about the date 1200),
during the restoration of Hargrave church in Northamptonshire. This
stone is now in the Northampton Museum. A similar stone has since been
found at Sempringham, Lincolnshire. It is to be seen on an ancient
tombstone in the Isle of Man, and painted on old Dutch tiles. And in
1901 a stone was dug out of a gravel pit near Oswestry bearing an
undoubted diagram of the game.
The game has been played with different rules at different periods and
places. I give a copy of the board. Sometimes the diagonal lines are
omitted, but this evidently was not intended to affect the play: it
simply meant that the angles alone were thought sufficient to indicate
the points. This is how Strutt, in _Sports and Pastimes_, describes the
game, and it agrees with the way I played it as a boy:--"Two persons,
having each of them nine pieces, or men, lay them down alternately, one
by one, upon the spots; and the business of either party is to prevent
his antagonist from placing three of his pieces so as to form a row of
three, without the intervention of an opponent piece. If a row be
formed, he that made it is at liberty to take up one of his competitor's
pieces from any part he thinks most to his advantage; excepting he has
made a row, which must not be touched if he have another piece upon the
board that is not a component part of that row. When all the pieces are
laid down, they are played backwards and forwards, in any direction that
the lines run, but only can move from one spot to another (next to it)
at one time. He that takes off all his antagonist's pieces is the
conqueror."
[Illustration]