Knattleikr: the Hurstwic Rules

Hurstwic is a Viking-age reenactment group in New England which plays a reconstructed version of knattleikr at some of their events.

Unstated, but evident, in the Hurstwic reconstruction is the notion that knattleikr is a member of the football family. As in football games, a ball is to be transported to the end of the field to score; unlike most, the players are also equipped with sticks, which are used both to start the plays and to impede the progress of opposing players. Given their placement of knattleikr in relation to other games, it's a great reconstruction - simple, but with the essence of the family in place, and with rules that make sure the ball will periodically be struck with the sticks and fly across the field.

The Scant Evidence Available to Would-Be Reconstructors of Knattleikr

The Sagas and other early sources about Viking-age Scandinavia make it quite clear what recreational activities the authors of those sources considered most typical, and we have enough evidence to make a stab at reconstructing each one. The popular board game hnefatafl is a matter only of debate about the precise details of certain rules, which likely varied from one group of players to another anyhow, and other forms of tafl vary from it primarily in the precise size and original layout of the board. The popular sport of knattleikr, on the other hand, has far less detail available to us today from which to attempt to discern the rules. We're quite able to come up with conjectural answers, of course - but doing so rapidly becomes a perfect case study in the application (and, likely, misapplication) of outside notions of what the range of possibilities even looks like, for the details provided to us are scant.