Chess-tables and chessmen are often specified in wills and inventories. The inventory of the effects of Sir Roger de Mortimer, referred to more than once, speaks of a coffer containing “j famil’ de ebore pro scaccario;” and among the jewels in the wardrobe book of Edward the first occur “una familia de ebore pro ludendo ad scaccarium,” and “una familia pro scaccario de jaspide et cristallo.” The “familia” in these entries is the same as the “meyne” in Chaucer’s lines just above; that is, the retinue, the company, or the set of domestics.
To quote from one will; Sir William Compton in his will, dated 1523 bequeathed to Henry the eighth “a little chest of ivory whereof one lock is gilt, with a chessboard under the same, and a pair of tables upon it, and all such jewels and treasures as are enclosed therein.”
The most complete set of ancient ivory chessmen now remaining was found in the isle of Lewis, in Scotland, about the year 1831, and most of them are now in the British museum. They are all of one character, similar to the accompanying woodcut, which is engraved from another walrus-ivory chessman, also in the British museum, and which was obtained some few years ago from a private collection.
It would be more proper to speak of the Lewis chess pieces as several sets, for there are some pieces enough for five or six. They are sixty-seven in number—six kings, five queens, thirteen bishops, fourteen knights, nineteen pawns, and ten (so-called) warders, which took the place of the modern rook or castle. This large collection was discovered by a labourer digging a sandbank, and every piece is accurately described in detail by Sir F. Madden in a paper read before the Society of antiquaries in 1832. They are all carved out of walrus ivory.
Upon this material Sir Frederic observes that “the estimation in which the teeth of the walrus were held by the northern nations rendered them a present worthy of royalty; and this circumstance is confirmed by a tradition preserved in the curious saga of Kröka the crafty, who lived in the tenth century.” [The saga itself is believed to have been written in the fourteenth century.] “It is there related, that Gunner, prefect of Greenland, wishing to conciliate the favour of Harald Hardraad, king of Norway (A.D. 1050), sent him the three most precious gifts the island could produce. These were, 1, a white bear; 2, a _chess-table_, or set of _chessmen_, exquisitely carved; 3, a skull of the Rostungr (or _walrus_) with the teeth fastened in it, and ornamented with gold.” The best Icelandic scholars take the term _Tan-Tabl_ in the sense of _chessmen made of the teeth of the walrus_.