Daldøs
Encyclopedia
Ø
Ø — minuscule: "ø", is a vowel and a letter used in the Danish, Faroese, Norwegian and Southern Sami languages.It's mostly used as a representation of mid front rounded vowels, such as ø œ, except for Southern Sami where it's used as an [oe] diphtong.The name of this letter is the same as the sound...
Board game
A board game is a game which involves counters or pieces being moved on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Games may be based on pure strategy, chance or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve...
only known from a few coastal locations in Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
, where its history can be traced back to around 1800. The game is notable for its unusual four-sided rolling-pin style dice
Dice
A die is a small throwable object with multiple resting positions, used for generating random numbers...
(stick or barrel dice). In Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
it is known as daldøs in Northern and Western Jutland
Jutland
Jutland , historically also called Cimbria, is the name of the peninsula that juts out in Northern Europe toward the rest of Scandinavia, forming the mainland part of Denmark. It has the North Sea to its west, Kattegat and Skagerrak to its north, the Baltic Sea to its east, and the Danish–German...
(Mors
Mors (island)
Mors or Morsø is a 367.7 km2 land locked island in the shallow sound called Limfjorden in Denmark. As of 1 January 2010, it has a population of 21,800. The main town on the island is called Nykøbing Mors. Geologically Mors is unique...
, Thisted
Thisted
Thisted is a town in Thisted municipality of Region Nordjylland, in Denmark. It has a population of 13,005 and is located in Thy, in northwestern Jutland....
and Fanø
Fanø
Fanø is a Danish island in the North Sea off the coast of southwestern Denmark, and is the very northernmost of the Danish Wadden Sea Islands...
), and possibly as daldos on Bornholm
Bornholm
Bornholm is a Danish island in the Baltic Sea located to the east of the rest of Denmark, the south of Sweden, and the north of Poland. The main industries on the island include fishing, arts and crafts like glass making and pottery using locally worked clay, and dairy farming. Tourism is...
. In Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
it is known under the name of daldøsa from Jæren
Jæren
Jæren is a traditional district in the county of Rogaland. The others are Dalane, Ryfylke and Haugalandet.Jæren is the largest flat lowland area in Norway, stretching from the municipality of Randaberg in the north to Hå in the south. The coast is flat compared to the rest of the Norwegian coast,...
, where, unlike in Denmark, a continuous tradition of the daldøs game exists. A rather similar game called sáhkku
Sáhkku
Sáhkku is a running-fight board game played by Sea Sami in northern Norway, Finland and Russia. The game is probably related to daldøs played in parts of Denmark and southern Norway, and possibly to tâb, played in northern Africa and south-western Asia....
, using virtually identical dice, is known in a number of variants from the Sea Sami
Sami people
The Sami people, also spelled Sámi, or Saami, are the arctic indigenous people inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of far northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Kola Peninsula of Russia, and the border area between south and middle Sweden and Norway. The Sámi are Europe’s northernmost...
in Northern Norway, Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
and Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. Otherwise, the closest relatives of this game appear to be the tâb
Tâb
Tâb is the Egyptian name of a running-fight board game played in several Arab countries, or a family of similar board games played in Northern Africa and South-western Asia, from Persia to West Africa and from Turkey to Somalia, where a variant called deleb is played.The tâb game is played by two...
games from Northern Africa and South-western Asia, possibly apart from one unlabelled diagram in a codex from Southern England.
Typical materials
BoardThe board is boat-shaped and has three parallel rows of holes, two of which (A and B) have 16 holes each, while the middle row (C) has an extra hole in the prow of the ship.
Pieces
Each player has 16 spatula-shaped pieces with a bottom end fitting into the holes of the board. One player has pieces that are rather wide and thin; where as the other player's pieces are more obelisk-shaped. At the beginning of the game, player A's pieces are placed in the holes of row A so that the spatulas are perpendicular to the row (un-dalled), and equivalently for player B. Later in the game, the pieces will be turned (fordallede, or dalled) so that the spatula is parallel to the rows.
Dice
Two special dice are used. Each die is a four-sided rolling pin (or stick die) with pyramidal or rounded ends, preventing the rolling pin from standing on end. They may be about 2 by 2 cm in cross section, and 4 cm long. The four sides are marked A (with the value 1, called dallen, i.e. the dal), II (2, probably called døs), III (3) and IIII (4). According to some sources, the dal is opposite to III.
Rules
Both players throw the dice; the highest throw (adding the dice, the dal counting as 1) begins the game.
Dalling
Pieces cannot move until they have been dalled. A die showing the dal allows the player to dal one piece, which means to turn it parallel to its row and move it one position ahead. With the first dal, only the piece closest to the stern can be dalled, and then it goes into row C. With no dalled pieces, a throw with no dals is a lost move.
Moves
The dalled pieces move according to dice throws. Each player's pieces move first through the home row to the stern, then through row C towards the prow, then into the enemy row back towards the stern. From here it moves into row C again, etc., never returning to the home row. The showings of the two dice may be either added and used to move one piece, or used separately for two different pieces. E.g., a throw of a dal and a three allows the player (i) to dal one piece (moving it one position) and then move another dalled piece three positions; (ii) to dal one piece and move it a total of four positions; (iii) to move two dalled pieces, one three positions and the other one position; or (iv) to move one dalled piece four positions. The showings of both dice must be used in a move. If that is not possible, the showing of one of the dice must be used. If that is not possible either, the move is lost. A throw of dal-dal (two dals) always gives the right to an extra throw.
Object
The object of the game is to remove all enemy pieces from the board. An enemy piece is removed when another piece ends at the same position. When the dice are added, only an enemy piece at the final position can be removed. Enemy pieces can be jumped, but are not removed thereby. Friendly pieces cannot be jumped at all. (Whether pieces jumped or at the final position are dalled or not is irrelevant here.) The game ends when one player has no pieces left.
Variations
The shape of the board, the pieces and the dice vary. E.g., the dal marked A in Denmark is marked X in Norway, and I in some modern reconstructions.In the rules supplied with some reconstructions of the game, the direction of the moves is reversed (prow-to-stern in row C instead of stern-to-prow). However, this difference has no real consequences.
In some reconstructions, the pieces are cylindrical with one end painted black for player A and white for player B. Undalled pieces are turned with the painted end down.
Some sources specify that only a player's undalled piece closest to the stern may be dalled. With this rule, the pieces need not be designed so that one can see whether a piece is dalled or not; instead the next piece to be dalled can be indicated by a marker.
Also, some sources indicate that when the dice are added and used to move one piece, enemy pieces at the intermediate position as well as at the final position are removed.
The end game can be tedious, so it has been suggested to agree that the first player to have only one piece left loses. Also, the players may agree to declare the game a draw.
The number of holes in each row is rather arbitrary; instead of the 16+17+16 used in the Danish game, 12+13+12 are used in Norway, with 12 pieces for each player. In either case, there is no obvious reason for the extra hole in the middle row, other than to distinguish the two ends of the board, which is necessary to define the direction of play.
Strategy
The game is simple, and one will soon realise that it pays to have dalled pieces waiting in the home row close to the prow, and also in the enemy row behind all enemy pieces. Most dal throws are used to dal pieces rather than to move already dalled pieces.Probabilities
It is often useful to have an idea of the probability that a given piece can be removed in the next round. Suppose player A has a piece a1, and player B has a piece b1 a few positions behind a1 with no other pieces in between. If it is B's turn, B's chances of being able to remove a1 using b1 in this turn depends on how many positions b1 is behind a1:
| Distance b1→a1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 or more |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Probability | 44% | 50% | 60% | 67% | 29% | 23% | 14% | 8% | less than 1% |
| Use of dal-dal | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
Note that the largest probability, two thirds, is found when b1 is four positions behind a1, and note the rapid decrease in the probabilities for larger distances. These values assume that B has sufficient possibilities to use part of the throw elsewhere on the board. E.g., with a distance of 2, B must either throw a dal-dal (probability 1/16), or one die must show 2 (probability 7/16), while B is able to use the other die to move another piece elsewhere on the board. The table row Use of dal-dal indicates how many positions B should move b1 at a throw of dal-dal in order to maximize the probability of removing a1, including the extra throw.
If B has an additional piece b2 behind b1, but no more than four positions behind a1, the first few probabilities are increased by including the possibility of jumping over a1 with b1 and then removing a1 using b2:
| Distance b1→a1 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Distance b2→a1 | 2, 3 or 4 | 3 or 4 | 4 |
| Probability | 75% | 69% | 67% |
| Use of dal-dal | 1 | 2 | 2 |
Note that now, the largest probability is three quarters, and is found when b1 is just one position behind a1.
History and sources
The origins of Daldøs are unknown, but it is strikingly similar to some games in the tâbTâb
Tâb is the Egyptian name of a running-fight board game played in several Arab countries, or a family of similar board games played in Northern Africa and South-western Asia, from Persia to West Africa and from Turkey to Somalia, where a variant called deleb is played.The tâb game is played by two...
group from Northern Africa and Western Asia, widely distributed during the Muslim expansion. One may conjecture that some sea-going trade contact has carried a tâb game to Scandinavia, either directly from the Arab world, or possibly via England, where a codex from Cerne Abbey, Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
, from the second half of the thirteenth century (Folio 2v, MS 0.2.45, Trinity College Library, Cambridge) possibly shows a Daldøs board with 12+12+12 holes, after both players have made their first move. The game must have arrived in Scandinavia not much later than 1800, and quite possibly a few centuries before that. A connection involving the Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
Vikings known as Varangians
Varangians
The Varangians or Varyags , sometimes referred to as Variagians, were people from the Baltic region, most often associated with Vikings, who from the 9th to 11th centuries ventured eastwards and southwards along the rivers of Eastern Europe, through what is now Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.According...
, mercenaries for the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
before 1100, has been suggested.
In a Danish historical novel "Fru Maria Grubbe" written in 1876 by J. P. Jacobsen, Maria plays daldøs with her husband in 1661. But most likely, Jacobsen knew the game from his childhood in Thisted in the 1850'es. In an article from 1927 by H. Billeskov Jansen [H. Billeskov Jansen: Daldøs, Danske Studier, Copenhagen 1927, pp. 96-100], the game is described in detail and the rules are given. The author had found one of the few surviving specimens from a farm near Thisted – a farm where Jacobsen used to come as a child. This game is now at Thisted Museum. Another game from Mors is now at Nationalmuseet
National Museum of Denmark
The National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen is Denmark’s largest museum of cultural history, comprising the histories of Danish and foreign cultures, alike. The museum's main domicile is located a short distance from Strøget at the center of Copenhagen. It contains exhibits from around the world,...
(Brede). From Bornholm, no sources mention the game, but a local saying spilla daldōs (lit. playing daldøs), meaning to live beyond one's means, has been recorded in 1856. A similar meaning has been recorded in Jutland.
In Jæren in Norway, a game of unknown age is kept in Hå
Hå
Hå is a municipality in Rogaland county, Norway. Hå is the southernmost municipality in the district Jæren.The parish of Haa was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 . It was divided into Nærbø and Varhaug in 1894. The municipality of Hå was created after the merger of Nærbø, Varhaug,...
bygdemuseum, a part of Jærmuseet. Jæren had close trade connections with the Danish regions where daldøs was played, and also with Northern Norway, where sáhkku was played.
The name of the game
In the name daldøs, the first syllable refers to the throw dal. The marking A on the daldøs dice probably stands for ace or the like, but the etymology of the name dal remains a mystery. One theory connects dal to Medieval English daly, meaning die. Døs is probably a variant of a NordicNorth Germanic languages
The North Germanic languages or Scandinavian languages, the languages of Scandinavians, make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages, a sub-family of the Indo-European languages, along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages...
word traditionally used for the "two" on a die, related to old French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
doues, surviving in the Danish word sinkadus, originally meaning a dice throw of 5 and 2. Most of the tâb games and the Samít sáhkku game are likewise named after the dice throw "one", which is required to release the pieces so that they can start moving.
Danish
- Peter Michaelsen: Daldøs og Sakku – to gamle nordiske spil med fjerne slægtninge. Ord & Sag 19, 1999, pp. 15-28 http://www.hum.au.dk/jysk/publikationer/ordsag19.pdf
- Peter Michaelsen: Daldøs – et gådefuldt gammelt brætspil. Historisk Årbog for Thy og Vester Han Herred, 2001 http://arkiv.thisted-bibliotek.dk/Historisk%20%C3%85rbog/%C3%85rgang%202001/Michaelsen,%20Peter%20%20%20Dald%C3%B8s%20-%20et%20g%C3%A5defuldt%20gammelt%20br%C3%A6tspil.pdf