As promised on 9th August:

From "Lachesis Lapponica", Linnaeus ed. Smith, 1811, vol. ii. pp. 55-58. [My notes are in square brackets. Linnaeus's unusual notation has been converted to the standard we all know.]

The game called TABLUT is played with a checkered board, and twenty-five pieces, or men, in the following manner. [There follows a diagram of the board, and diagrams of the three types of piece.]

Fig. 1. is the king, whose station is in the central square or royal castle, called KONOKIS by the Laplanders, to which no other person can be admitted.

Fig. 2. represents one of the eight Swedes his subjects, who, at the commencement of the game, are stationed in the eight squares, adjoining to the royal castle. [The squares c5, d5, e3, e4, e6, e7, f5, and g5 are marked on the diagram.]

Fig. 3. is one of the sixteen Muscovites, their adversaries, who occupy the sixteen embroidered squares, situated four together in the middle of each side of the field. [The embroidered squares in the diagram correspond to the familiar attacker's positions.]

The vacant squares may be occupied by any of the pieces in the course of the game.

LAWS

1. Any piece may move from one square to another in a right line, as from d4 to d2, but not corner-wise, or from d4 to c3.

2. It is not allowed to pass over the heads of any other pieces that may be in the way, or to move, for instance, from c4 to c1, in case any were stationed at c3 or c2.

3. If the king should stand in c4, and no other pieces in c3, c2 or c1, he may escape by that road, unless one of the Muscovites immediately gets possesion of one of the squares in question, so as to interrupt him.

4. If the king be able to accomplish this, the contest is at an end.

5. If the king happens to be in c3, and none of his own people or his enemies either in b3, a3, c2 or c1, his exit cannot be prevented.

6. Whenever the person who moves the king perceives that a passage is free, he must call out RAICHI, and if there be two ways open, TUICHU.

7. It is allowable to move ever so far at once, in a right line, if the squares in the way be vacant, as from b4 to b1.

8. The Swedes and the Muscovites take it by turns to move.

9. If any one man gets between two squares occupied by his enemies, he is killed and taken off, except the king, who is not liable to this misfortune.

10. If the king, being in his own square or castle [e5], is encompassed on three sides by his enemies, one of them standing in each of the adjacent squares [e.g. d5, e4 and f5], he may move away by the fourth [e.g. e6]. If one of his own people happens to be in this fourth square, and one of his enemies is in e7 next to it, the soldier thus enclosed between his king and the enemy is killed. If four of the enemy gain position of the four squares adjacent to the castle, thus enclosing the king, he becomes their prisoner.

11. If the king be in e4, with an enemy in each of the adjoining squares d4, f4 and e3, he is likewise taken.

12. Whenever the king is thus taken or imprisoned, the war is over, and the conqueror seizes all the Swedes, the conquered party resigning all the Muscovites that he had taken.