Nine Men’s Morris is also known to Assassin’s Creed fans because it is used as a mini-game in this video game. If you have carefully watched “Maleficent” ( American dark fantasy film directed by Robert Stromberg) you may have noticed two fairies playing Nine Men’s Morris. Game is present in culture, most often where someone wants to show an old but well-known game. Anyway, a lot of people play Mill, also on-line. I know that the World Federation of Mill was established in the past, but I’m not sure if it is still working. It is a pity that Mill is not a serious mind sport played on large tournaments. It is not so far from “merellus” to “merels”, “merrills” and “mill”. There are many games known already in ancient times, but none of them is as popular today as Mill.Įnglish name of the Game – Nine Men’s Morris – comes probably from the Latin word merellus, which means a gaming piece. Diverse names and appearances shows that game was known for a long time on large area. It has many other names: luk-tsut-ki (China), nao-guti (india), epello (Nigeria), triodion (Greece), quarn (Sweden), dugurjin (Turkey). In many languages game is called “Mill” but it is also known as “cowboy checkers”. Various Mill variants are known over the world. A 13th century illustration of playing Nine Men’s Morris (from Libro de los juegos) The game was popular among monks, so it was apparently not considered “immoral”.
Certainly Nine Men’s Morris was known and popular in medieval Europe. The traces of such magical Mill boards were found in graves from Bronze Age (c. People believed this symbol protects from evil and is connected with rebirth.
Confucius in China wrote about similar game much earlier.Īmong Celtic nations Mill board was considered a magical symbol of four cardinal directions. It is believed that Ovid wrote about game of Mill, which was known in ancient Rome. But Roman poet also mentions another game, where aim of the play is to get the pieces in a straight line. Ovid recommends especially game of Latrunculi, which is forgotten today (I will describe it soon). They should learn to play popular games because love sometimes come during play. …Roman poet Ovid in his famous “The Art of Love” ( Ars Amatoria) gives a great advice to women. Those old boards cannot be precisely dated, but… Unfortunately we can’t be sure if Mill is really that old game. In some books you can read that earliest boards to play Nine Men’s Morris (or Mill) were found at Kurna in Egypt and they could be made c. I will explain Mill rules in this post but first let me write a little about it’s history. It is still popular, it can surprise next generations of players and many people have no idea how old this game really is! It is Nine Men’s Morris also known as Mill. In my opinion there is one special game that deserves to be called “timeless”. Others talk about “timeless” computer games like Pac-Man or timeless tabletop games like Monopoly. Is there really any timeless game? Some people say chess or checkers are timeless, but these games are not as old as they seem.