Chess History And Reminiscences
mark their behaviour when they received it. They were thus
occupied, Sigurd Snakeseye played at chess with Huitzeck the
bold; but Biorn Ironside was polishing the shaft of a spear in the
middle of the hall. As the messengers proceeded with their story
Huitzeck and Sigurd dropped their game and listened to what
was said with great attention, Ivar put various questions and
Biorn leant on the spear he was polishing. But when the
messengers came to the death of the chief, and told his expiring
words that the young bears would gnarl their tusks (literally
grunt) if they knew their parent's fate, Biorn grasped the handle
of his spear so tight with emotion that the marks of his fingers
remained on it, and when the tale was finished dashed it in pieces,
Huitzeck compressed a chessman he had taken so with his
fingers that the blood started from each whilst Sigurd Snakeseye
paring his nails with a knife was so wrapped up in attention
that he cut himself to the bone without feeling it.
All authorities down to the end of the Eighteenth century,
ascribe the first knowledge of chess in England, to the time of the
reign of William the Conqueror, or to that of the return of the
first Crusaders, some adding not earlier than 1100 A.D., H. T.
Buckle the author and historian who was foremost in skill among
chess amateurs, in his references to the game, satisfied apparently
with the evidence of Canute's partiality for it, (1017 to 1035)
thought it probable that it was familiarly known in England a
century or so before that monarch's reign. Sir Frederick Madden
writing from 1828 to 1832 at the outset of his highly interesting
communications to the Asiatic Society, at first inclined to the
Crusaders theory, but upon further investigation later in his articles
he arrived at the conclusion that chess might have been known
among us in Athelstan's reign from 925 to 941, and Professor
Forbes writing from 1854 to 1860 concurred in that view. Both
of these authorities after quoting old chess incidents and anecdotes
of Pepin's and Charlemagne's times with other references to chess
in France, Germany, and Scandinavia, then pass on to chess in
England, and after asserting the probability that the Saxons most
likely received chess from their neighbours the Danes then fix
apparently somewhat inconsistently so late as the Tenth century
for it. They assert that the tradition of the game having been
brought from the North certainly existed, and is mentioned by
Gaimar who wrote about the year 1150, when speaking of the
mission of Edelwolth from King Edgar to the castle of Earl Orgar,
in Devonshire to verify the reports of his daughter Elstreuth's
beauty. When he arrived at the mansion,
"Orgar juout a un esches,
Un gin k'il aprist des Daneis,
Od lui juout Elstruat lu bele,
Sus ciel n'ont donc tele damesele."
"Orgar was playing at the chess,
A game he had learnt of the Danes,
With him played the fair Elstrueth,
A fairer maiden was not under heaven."
Edgar reigned from 958 to 975, English history referring to
this incident among the amours of Edgar, make no mention of the
Earl of Devonshire and his daughter being found playing chess
together. Hume says Elfrida was daughter and heir of Olgar
Earl of Devonshire and though she had been educated in the
country, and had never appeared at court, she had filled all
England with the reputation of her beauty.
The mission of Earl Athelwold, his deception of the king, and
marriage of Elfrida follows, next the king's discovery, the murder
of Athelwold by the King, and his espousal of Elfrida.
This incident with others, such as the presentation to Harold
Harfagra, King of Norway of a very fine and rich chess table,
and the account of and description of seventy chess men of
different sizes belonging to various sets dug up in the parish of
Uig, in the Isle of Lewis, are referred to by the writers as the
chess allusions of the North, but Sir Frederick Madden who confines
himself to the supposition of the Saxons having received the game
from the Danes, rather disregards a statement of Strutt, Henry
and others, based on a passage in the Ramsey chronicle that chess
was introduced among the Saxons, so early as the Tenth century.
Forbes however who usually agrees with Madden, sees no
improbability in it or grounds for disputing, and thinks that England
may have obtained its knowledge from France between the Eighth
and Tenth centuries. It is curious that Forbes stops here like
Madden and all other writers, he evidently knew nothing of the
Roman edict of 115 B.C., and neither of them cast a thought to the
earlier reigns of Alfred, Egbert, and Offa, which were
contemporary with the Golden Age of Literature in Arabia and the
period when chess had so long travelled from Persia to other
countries, and was so well known and appreciated in Arabia;
Constantinople, Spain, and among the Aquitaines as well as by
the Carlovingian Monarchs. Al Walid the first Khalif noted for
chess, the most powerful of the house of Umeyyah, who (through
his generals Tarak and Musa invaded, conquered, and entered
Spain, reigned from 705 to 715 B.C.), and comes before Offa,
whose reign commenced five years after the foundation of the
mighty Abbasside Dynasty, which displaced the first house of
Umeyyah, and thirteen years before that of Charlemagne, with
whom he was contemporary 26 years, and Egbert was 13 years.
Harun Ar Rashid; of Abbasside, the Princess Irene, and the
Emperor Nicephorus of Constantinople, and the successors of
Harun, viz., Al Amin, Al Mamun, the Great Al Mutasem and Al
Wathik (the two last contemporary with our Alfred), all
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