Nine Men's Morris Rules: History, How to Play, and Why Vikings Played It Too

Long before chess boards and playing cards, there was a simpler game that soldiers, monks, and merchants carved into whatever surface was nearby — a temple roof, a cathedral bench, the deck of a ship. Nine Men's Morris is one of the oldest board games still played today, and it has a genuinely surprising connection to the Viking world.

A Game Older Than Most Civilizations

The earliest known Nine Men's Morris board was carved into the roofing slabs of a temple at Kurna, Egypt, dating to roughly 1400 BCE — though scholars disagree on exactly how old those specific carvings are. What's clearer is that the game spread widely through the ancient world. The Romans called it merels, from the Latin merellus ("gaming piece"), and Roman soldiers scratched boards into stone across their military camps in Britain and mainland Europe, using it to pass long stretches of downtime far from home.

By the medieval period, the game was everywhere. It was carved into the stone benches of English cathedrals, referenced in Chaucer, and immortalized by Shakespeare, whose Titania complains in A Midsummer Night's Dream that "the nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud" — a nod to how commonly the game was played outdoors on grass. In the early 12th century, the Rule of the Knights Templar specifically named it as an acceptable pastime for Templar brothers, since — unlike dice games — it involved no gambling.

The Viking Connection

Here's the detail most Nine Men's Morris write-ups miss entirely: the game turns up directly in Viking archaeology. The Gokstad ship burial in Norway (dated to around 900 CE) contained a double-sided wooden gaming board — one side laid out for Hnefatafl, the Viking "king's table" game, and the other side carved with a Nine Men's Morris grid. Whether it arrived in Scandinavia through Roman contact, trade routes, or independent development, by the Viking Age it was sitting in the same ship, likely played by the same hands, as one of the defining games of Norse culture.

How to Set Up the Board

The board consists of three concentric squares connected by lines at the midpoints of their sides, creating 24 intersection points where pieces can be placed. Each of the two players gets 9 pieces (traditionally one dark set, one light set).

How to Play: The Three Phases

Phase 1: Placing

The board starts empty. Players alternate turns placing one piece at a time on any open point. The goal is to form a mill — three of your own pieces in a straight line along the board's grid — while also watching for your opponent's developing mills and blocking them. Whenever you complete a mill, you immediately remove one of your opponent's pieces from the board (you generally can't take a piece that's part of their own mill, unless no other pieces are available).

Phase 2: Moving

Once all 18 pieces are on the board, play shifts to movement. On your turn, you slide one piece along a line to an adjacent open point — no jumping, no diagonal moves. This phase is where the game tightens: you're constantly balancing offense (building toward new mills) against defense (not leaving yourself boxed in).

A well-known advanced tactic is the "swinging mill" — setting up a position where you can break and immediately reform the same mill on alternating turns, removing an opponent's piece every single time. Watching for this (and preventing it) separates casual play from serious play.

Phase 3: Flying

If a player is ever reduced to exactly 3 pieces, that player is allowed to "fly" — moving a piece to any open point on the board, not just an adjacent one. This rule exists specifically to keep close games alive; without it, a slight disadvantage would snowball into an inevitable loss far too quickly.

How to Win

You win by either of two conditions:

• Reducing your opponent to 2 pieces — with only 2 pieces left, forming a mill (which requires 3) becomes impossible.
• Blocking every legal move — if your opponent has pieces but nowhere they're allowed to move, they lose immediately.

With perfect play by both sides, Nine Men's Morris has actually been mathematically solved — it ends in a draw. In practice, mistakes happen constantly, which is exactly what keeps real games interesting.

A Few Tips If You're Just Starting Out

• Don't chase the first mill you see. An early mill built carelessly can leave your pieces immobile a few turns later.
• Watch for double threats. The strongest positions threaten two different mills at once, forcing your opponent into a choice they can't fully answer.
• Control the intersections with the most connections. Points that touch more lines give you more flexibility later in the game.
• In the moving phase, think one step ahead of "can I move here" — ask "will I be able to move again after this." Mobility wins more games than aggression.

Play It the Way It's Been Played for Centuries

Our Nine Men's Morris set is built the way the game has always been meant to be played — a real board and pieces you can hold, not a screen. Whether you're setting it up for a reenactment display, a game night, or just want a genuinely ancient way to spend an evening, it's the same core game that soldiers, monks, and Viking sailors have been playing for thousands of years.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the objective of Nine Men's Morris?

The goal is to form a "mill" — three of your own pieces in a straight line along the board — which lets you remove one of your opponent's pieces from play. You win by reducing your opponent to just 2 pieces (too few to ever form a mill) or by trapping them so they have no legal move left on their turn.

Who invented Nine Men's Morris?

There's no single known inventor. The earliest possible board was carved into a temple roof at Kurna, Egypt, around 1400 BCE, though the dating of those specific carvings is debated among historians. What's better documented is that the Romans played a closely related version they called "merels," and the game spread independently across the ancient and medieval world from there — reaching everywhere from Roman military camps to English cathedral benches to a Viking ship burial in Norway.

How long does a game of Nine Men's Morris take?

A casual game typically runs 15 to 30 minutes. The placing phase is fixed at 18 total moves (9 per player), while the moving phase can stretch on depending on how cautiously both players play.

Is Nine Men's Morris the same as Tic Tac Toe?

No, though they're distantly related. Tic Tac Toe's ancestor, Three Men's Morris, is the smallest member of the same "morris" family of games as Nine Men's Morris — same core concept of forming a line, or "mill," to win, just scaled up significantly with more pieces, more board intersections, and an added moving phase.

Does going first give you an advantage?

Slightly, yes, in practical play — but with perfect play from both sides, the game has been mathematically proven to always end in a draw regardless of who moves first. The first-move edge matters more between two imperfect (human) players than it does in theory.

What age is Nine Men's Morris good for?

The rules are simple enough for kids around age 8 and up to learn quickly, but the strategic depth in the moving and flying phases gives it real staying power for adults too — it's not a game you outgrow.

Can you play with more or fewer than 9 pieces?

The standard, most historically documented version uses 9 pieces per player. Smaller relatives exist (Three Men's Morris, Six Men's Morris), but they're genuinely different games with their own board layouts, not simplified variants of the nine-piece version.