I have a mountain of stuff to go in here eventually, but I'll begin with some games I've had the luck to introduce into books. Thanks to everyone who had a hand in working out the rules and testing to see that they really work.

Thanks especially to the wonderful Rowena from Australia, because of whom you can now play the games here live on your screen. Her versions work just like the hard-copy ones in the books, which means that other players need to be in the same room, and one of you still has to get your head around the rules. You can't play against the computer yet or have it demonstrate the game to you, but this is still a tremendous advance and maybe the rest can come later.

SNAIL RACING

Here's a gnome board game Wayne Anderson and I came across during our research into that cheerful race. Click on the illustration if you'd like to give it a try. The button in the bottom left of the board shows the rules. The die is top left, pick it up and roll it for a throw. Or just click it if you're in a hurry. Choose a colour from the marbles in the top right.

The game was first printed at the back of hard cover copies of Gnomes and Gardens. There are other spiral race games around but I think this is different enough to stand as an original. The rules vary slightly to allow for different numbers of players and it's a great game to play with young kids because, being naturally luckier than adults, they usually win. There is an element of strategy though, more so than with Snakes and Ladders for example, but about the same as in Ludo. Alternatively, click HERE to see one of Rowena's own board games inspired by Spike Milligan.

MAGPIE

Magpie is an intriguing leprechaun board game that we had the chance to publish on the end-papers of The Leprechaun Companion, which Wayne Anderson also illustrated. Click on the board left for a playable version of the game. Click the 'Instructions' button there for a pop-up frame explaining the rules. It works just like an ordinary, unelectronic game board, except you use your mouse to move the pieces.

Magpie is a slightly original version of the ancient Irish game of Brandub whose rules are pretty well known thanks to Linnaeus, the great naturalist, who picked up those of a closely related game in Finland. The trouble is that in their received form the rules simply don't work as a game that anyone would bother to spend their winter months playing. With Brandub (and the smaller Nordic Tafl games to which it is related) if you follow the generally accepted rules you soon find the King is invincible and the game becomes rather pointless. What leprechauns do is limit their 'king' to moving just one space at a time. This evens the balance enough to provide a lasting conundrum.

If you want to know more about the background of ancient Celtic and Scandinavian board games, click HERE for a fascinating and very influential old article by E.V. MacWhite.

FAERY CHESS

Here's a game we're thinking of including at the back of a third book in the vein of Leprechauns and Gnomes that Wayne Anderson and I have collaborated on. Called Granny's Grimoire, it's a collection of Wise Women's lore and it's still in search of a publisher, should any interested ones happen to be reading this. Click on the cover to learn more. The game is Faery Chess and a very strange one it is indeed. Seemingly quite simple to begin with, you can play it endlessly without hitting bottom.

Thanks again to the sublime Rowena and her javascript talent you can try the game out here online. Just click on the board. If all the marbles don't show at first, hit your Refresh (F5) button. For game instructions click on the solitary marble on the right. For a new game click the similar one on the left. For a variation of the game click the marble at the bottom centre.

This game has been an on-off obsession of mine for the best part of 30 years. In the mid to late 70s I first came across mention of a lost board game called Fidchell that appears in several ancient Irish epics and chronicles. Under the name of Gwyddbwyll it also appears in the Welsh Mabinogion and seems to have been held in peculiar reverence throughout the British Isles. Faery Chess is what emerged from my investigations and speculations about the lost game. There isn't really enough evidence to claim that this actually is the original Fidchell - someone would have to unearth an ancient game board bearing exactly this pattern for that to be so - but it fits most of the criteria that interested me in the first place. Plus it is not only quite different to other board games but fascinating to play if you enjoy abstract, chess-like games. Its great advantage over chess is that your opponent will not have been able to swot up secretly on books of strategy. Apart from the hints that you can pick up from the booklet on the right that I wrote to go with it . . .

On balance I think Faery Chess is the safest name to give the game because it is a strange and wonderful artifact that kind of came from the faeries and works brilliantly both as an abstract game and a symbolic framework that could be used for divination. It will probably take another thirty years to unravel the system for doing this, and I'm not really counting on being around that long. But who knows, perhaps I can do it a bit quicker than that because the groundwork is all done.

THE DRAGON TAROT

With Dragon Tarot I dithered a bit over whether it belonged in the Library or Games Room, which I've solved by putting it in both, because it kind of belongs equally in both. The cover links to the Tarot package's own website which I set up as a little bonus for those who have one. It goes into the origins and background of both this particular pack and Tarot in general in greater detail than there was room for in the accompanying book, most of which is necessarily taken up with interpretations of the cards. There is also a game that goes with Tarot but I haven't quite worked out the rules yet.

It was a real pleasure working with Roger and Linda Garland again, as we've been trying to arrange for a while, and their cards were bliss on the eyes as they came in. See for yourself on the website. It will open in a new window that you close to return here.

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