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Fidchell

Displacement and Capture Games

Fidchell, also spelled Gwyddbwyll in Welsh sources, was a board game played among the ancient Celtic peoples of Ireland and Britain, in which two players moved an equal number of pieces across a board. Its exact rules and dating are uncertain, since it survives only through references in Irish and Welsh literary tradition and a handful of archaeological finds, but scholars believe it was likely a variant of the Roman game ludus latrunculorum that spread into Celtic lands in the early first millennium. By the 15th century the original game had faded from use, and the word fidchell had itself come to simply mean chess in Irish, leaving the older game's rules lost to history.

Facts
Sport
Game Type (category)
Strategy Game 1
Classification
Player Count
Two-Player 1
Sources
1. Fidchell (Wikipedia)
  • Lead - game-type-category
    Fidchell / Gwyddbwyll was a board game popular among the ancient Celts.
  • Lead - player-count
    Fidchell was played between two people who moved an equal number of pieces across a board.
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