TOSS CAREFULLY: The author exhibits good form. |
Three simple words may change the face of your lazy-day summer activities: Viking lawn sport.
Kubb is a Swedish yard game, supposedly first played by the Vikings hundreds of years ago. Urban legend has it that they played the game with “the bones of dead enemies,” according to the Northvegr Foundation, a northern European pre-Christian historical society, “but when civilization demanded a more humane approach they began using wooden blocks.”
Kubb was popularized in the modern era on Gotland, Sweden’s largest island. Pronounced “koob,” and also known as "Viking Chess," the game was first manufactured in America in 1999 by a company called Old Time Games. The most prominent Kubb club in the US is in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, though there are others in Seattle and Minnesota (so consider this a rare chance where Portland, Maine, has the opportunity to help start a fad before the Other Portland and New York City do).
The concept is fairly simple, though the rules require some explaining. Kubb is played in a smallish rectangular court (30 by 15 feet) with two teams. Lining the base of each end of the field are five kubbs, or “chopping blocks,” measuring 3 by 3 by 6 inches, with a taller “king” in the center of the court. Each team, generally made up of one to six players, has six wooden batons or “throwing sticks.” Players throw the batons underhand across the field from behind their own baseline, attempting to knock the opposing team’s five kubbs over.
After a baseline kubb is knocked over, the game becomes more complicated. If Team 1, after throwing its six batons, has knocked over one of their opponents’ kubbs, Team 2 must begin their turn by hurling that kubb into Team 1’s half of the field. Team 1 places the kubb, now called a “field kubb” (as it's in the field rather than on the baseline now), upright. Before Team 2 can begin to attack Team 1’s baseline kubbs, they must knock over this field kubb. If Team 2 fails to knock over this field kubb, Team 1 can throw from behind the upright field kubb, rather than their baseline (a major worry: this could reduce the distance they have to hurl their batons in half).
Further complications abound — do you want to “tower” multiple field kubbs, or “cluster” them, as they do in the World Championships on Gotland every August? — but the gist remains simple: knock all of your opponent's baseline kubbs over, and then it’s an easy toss to the king. Be careful, though, not to accidentally knock the king over while hurling or attacking field kubbs; like sinking the 8-ball in billiards, it’s an immediate Game Over.
A lot of Kubb’s current hipness is due to its quirky origins, but the game, a mix of horseshoes and lawn bowling (with a dash of Jenga, at times), is a durable and easily learned favorite. It can be played on multiple surfaces (we’re itching to try it on ice), and as with most games, becomes more involved and strategic as you get better at it. Basic sets, made of ash and oak, sell online for $50 to $90, though a number of sites are currently sold out; a carpenter friend made a set in an hour with $20 of wood. You can Google “kubb” and find plenty of purchase links, construction specs, and rules.
Bocce and croquet are all well and good, but we like Kubb’s undertones of warring and violence, which we’ve been missing in our lawn sports. Croquet hasn’t been violent since mallets were used as murder weapons in The Shining, and just think: if the game becomes heated enough, you could actually play with the bones of your dead enemies.
Christopher Gray, who still plays with blocks regularly, can be reached atcgray@thephoenix.com.
