Chess and the Irish, part 2.

Submitted by fozzwaldusmaximus on Mon, 03/31/2008 at 12:58am.

This article is a follow up to Alec Keen's earlier blog: http://blog.chess.com/AlecKeen/chess-and-the-irish---the-prequel, wherein he highlights several references to a game that could be described as chess in the ancient stories of Fionn and the Fianna.

I have recently read Ciaran Carson's translation of The Tain (part of the epic Ulster Cycle see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A1in_B%C3%B3_C%C3%BAailnge) and was fascinated by the author's explication of several further references to "chess" in ancient Irish literature. The following sections come from the appendix of the translation:

"chess: Fidchell, literally 'wood-intelligence' (ie as in a wood of trees). Although often translated as 'chess' we have little idea as to how the game might have worked, beyond it being played with pieces on a board."

As Alec Keen pointed out, chess skills were required of the warriors of the time, and would be used to settle diplomatic arguments between leaders. I find the linguistic aspect especially interesting; this "wood-intelligence". I believe this is what is called a "kenning" - a phenomenon found in early languages that have undeveloped specialist vocabularies. When their vocaublary fell short they would combine two preexisting words to make a third. Many examples of this can be found in Beowulf wherein "whale-road" means the sea, and "bone-house" means the human body/anatomy. Heaney brings this out beautifully in his translation.

Any ideas on what exactly this "wood-intelligence" is referring to? Carson maintains that it means wood as in forest, and not wood as in the material. I guess we'll never know, since we have no evidence of the game!

It would be great to hear if anyone knows of references to chess in any other ancient civilizations... (India, China?)

More to follow!

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by AlecKeen - 7 months ago
Chester, England Ireland

Member Since: Jul 2007
Member Points: 170

Try the Persians; their phrase "Shah mati" (literally "the king is dead") corrupted to our present-day "checkmate"

The Indians developed the recognisedly modern game about 1000 years ago. The Hindu psyche seems to value a certain timelessness in their games (chess; test cricket), and their chess became increasingly defensive and boring. To address this, the rules changed to allow the pawns to move two spaces forward on the first move, rather than one only. This in turn led to the introduction of "en passant" to ensure that pawns did not benefit from the 2-space rule by jumping over a square under attack.

Regarding the Tain, I clearly remember being at Croke Park in the 50s at a large scale pageant based on the Tain. It was one of a series of annual extravaganzas based on various Celtic legends held in May during the long defunct "An Tostal" festival. I seem to remember TP McKenna played Cuchullain, and the red bull looked for all the world like a glorified pantomime horse. Most of the principals were from the Abbey, and the dialogue was totally in Gaelic....which has nothing whatever to do with chess.

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