Fox and Geese
one fox against thirteen geese · a hunt on a cross of thirty-three points
NORTHERN EUROPE · THE MIDDLE AGES
One fox, thirteen geese. The fox is quicker and can take; the geese are many and can only close in. It is the smallest siege in the Games Room.
The history
A cousin of the king's table
Fox and Geese belongs to the hunt family of games, and its ancestor stands in the Norse world beside hnefatafl. The Icelandic sagas name a game called halatafl — fox-tafl — and the shape of it is the same as the shape here: one strong piece, quick and able to take, set against a crowd of weaker pieces whose only weapon is closing in. Where the king's table tells of a siege, the fox game tells of a hunt.
A king's silver set
The game stayed fashionable for centuries. The household accounts of King Edward IV of England, in the 1400s, record a fox and geese board whose fox and geese were made of silver — one fox and thirteen geese, the very count on this board. It was played in taverns and farmhouses too, with pegs and pebbles, and it is still set up the same way today.
The honest footnote
Hunt games travelled by word of mouth, so small rules differ from place to place — in some, the geese may step backward; in others the fox must take more geese to win. The version overleaf is stated exactly as the school plays it: geese step forward or sideways, never back, and the fox wins by taking the geese down to five — six being the fewest geese that can seal even the smallest corner against it.
The rules, plainly
A game for two players · the geese move first · play as either side
Setting up
Set the thirteen geese on the points of the geese's half of the cross, as the board shows: the two full arms on the fox's far side and the front rows. Set the fox on the middle point of the board. The geese move first.
The geese
On a goose turn, move one goose one step to an empty neighbouring point, along a drawn line. Geese step toward the fox's side, sideways, or diagonally forward where a diagonal is drawn — never backward, and never diagonally backward. Geese cannot capture anything. Their whole art is the slow net: filling the points the fox needs until it cannot move.
The fox
On the fox's turn, move the fox one step to an empty neighbouring point, in any direction along a drawn line. Or leap: if a goose stands next to the fox and the point directly beyond it is empty and connected, the fox may jump over that goose and take it. One leap per turn — the fox does not chain its captures.
Winning
The fox wins the moment it has taken eight geese, leaving five — from five, the net can never close. The geese win the moment the fox has no legal move. If a hundred and twenty turns pass without a capture, call it honours even and set the board again.
Play it here
Play against the school, at Apprentice, Journeyman, or Master strength — or pass the screen and play a friend.
Your side
Computer strength
THE RULES, PLAINLY — THIS VERSION
The board is a cross of thirty-three points. Thirteen geese begin on one half; the fox begins in the centre. The geese move first.
The geese step one point along any line to an empty point — forward, sideways, or diagonally forward — but never backward. They cannot capture. They win by hemming the fox in so completely that it has no move at all.
The fox steps one point along any line, in any direction. It captures by leaping over a neighbouring goose onto the empty point just beyond it, as in draughts — one leap in a turn.
The fox wins by taking geese down to five: fewer than six geese can never close the net, because sealing even the fox's smallest corner takes six — the three points beside it and the three landing points behind them. A side that cannot move on its turn loses. A hundred and twenty turns without a capture is called honours even.