[014] Making Games Every Day for a Month, Day 2 of 31: Three Man's Morris

"Games are an essential aspect of cultural activity, comparable in some ways to the performing arts." - David Parlett, The Oxford History of Board Games

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Today I'd like to try and make a willow bark box.

These kinds of boxes are most commonly made of birch bark, but I've recently seen one made out of linden bark, and I have a lot of beautifully big pieces of willow sitting around. The tops and bottoms of these boxes are discs of wood, so I think they could make a perfect little board game, and the pieces for the game could fit inside the box!

I harvested lots and lots of willow bark this spring, and coiled them up into these handy packages.

Look at that color and texture!!

I'll let that soak for a few minutes while I research the game we will be making today. As you can see, this pot has been used for some natural dyestuffs recently! Madder root, perhaps?

While I'm working on this project today, I'm rewatching Waking Life for the zillionth time. I love this movie. Always makes my day wyrd. The passionate monologues of all these odd characters makes me feel more receptive to inspiration.

I've decided: I'm going to make Three Man's Morris today.

Three Man's Morris is the grandaddy of Tic-Tac-Toe. The idea is that you start with an empty board, and players take turns placing one piece at a time, trying to make three in a row. Once all the pieces are on the board, players take turns moving the pieces along the board, trying to make that ever-elusive arrangement, the three-in-a-row.

Three Man's Morris is also called Nine-Holes, because of course there are nine spaces on the board. It was common in the Middle Ages to dig nine holes on the side of the road, and use three sticks as your game pieces.

There was a story I heard of a servant who took a bet from another servant - that he couldn't keep his lord from missing church on Sunday morning. The lord, apparently, was quite devout. The servant took the bet and met the lord the next morning on the way to church.

The servant sketched a Nine-Hole board on the ground, and the two quickly got to playing. Whenever the lord seemed to become impatient, the servant would engage him again, and the lord would be drawn back into another game.

Not only did the lord miss his holy service, but he didn't come home for lunch or dinner, and was roundly beaten by his wife for his foolishness!

There have been Three Man's Morris boards carved into ancient Egyptian roofing tiles, scratched into English cathedral steps, and dug into ancient Roman floors.

Buddha spoke out against games like this - though probably not this game in particular. Various spiritual leaders from many traditions have taken issue with these kinds of games.

I wonder why these games are seen as sinful, or at least distracting? Maybe it's that old classism at work again - the wealthy and powerful fighting to control every free moment of working people.

I was reading David Partlett's book this morning, The Oxford History of Board Games . He makes the assertion that games have historically been very adult activities. It is ahistorical, and very recent, to associate games with children.

So, at least in most of Europe, we see this strange tension between adult institutions and adults being interested in playing games. Perhaps it is an issue of earthly desires, like sex and food and avarice.

So, this bent-bark box thing. I'm trying to carve down the sides of this Three Man's Morris board into a smooth circle, so the bark can be bent evenly and snug to the surface. This is going to be the top of the box.

I finished watching Waking Life, and I've moved onto watching Johnny Mnemonic.

In Johnny Mnemonic, Keanu Reeves is a data-smuggler whose brain is overburdened with illegal information. His companion is befallen by the Black Shakes - information overload from the technological infrastructure of their world.

I think we've all got a minor, chronic form of the Black Shakes. Information overload. Doomfeeding. Handmade games are a remedy - that's my theory.

IRL games allow us to play freely without having to download massive global panic-info. No screens, no web interface, just a few rules and a few sticks or rocks.

Games aren't always subversive to power, but I think the best ones are. Games can provide an unmediated intimacy between two people, or a group of people, free of hegemonic surveillance.

Watching 1990s cyberpunk movies always make me talk all paranoid like that.

Anyways, look how nice this bark is! The willow bark went from crispy-dry to leather-soft just from soaking in water.

I'm going to use this birch bark technique for making a little arrowhead sort of thing. This is from Bernard S. Mason's book Woodcraft .

I haven't tried this before but it seems pretty straightforward!

To fasten the bark to the wooden top, you poke a little hole...

... then drill it out...

Then stick a little peg in there to hold it all in place!

Something wonderful about slöjd projects like this is that all the materials carry their own story.

This willow bark is from willow rods I cut in the summer. I sliced the bark from tip to tail, and then peeled it off the young sapling trees.

The naked saplings I brought up to North House Folk School to use as gigantic pick-up-sticks for their summer solstice festivities ! And so, those same willows are providing the containing walls for this new game of Nine-Holes.

The wooden discs I'm using here are from a birch tree that a friend's friend was cutting from their front lawn. The tree was absolutely massive, and it was just the right time of year to harvest the bark as well.

And so, a friend's friend's birch gave the wood for this game!

The little pegs I'm using to keep this all together was another small piece of the lightning-struck ash I used yesterday . It was cut down from a friend, on the recommendation of another quite magickal friend.

And so! This box was made from local materials, all provided by friends or for friends. Isn't that wonderful!

Our last bit is just to make a few pegs to play with!

Oh!!! Delightful!

Some lovely paint, and we'll let them sit overnight.

Thanks for the read. See you tomorrow for the next one!

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"Play validates itself. Its purpose and value are intrinsic. True games serve no conscious practical purpose beyond that of satisfying an urge to play which is sometimes regarded as an instinct. 'He who must play cannot truly play' declares James Carse, in Finite and Infinite Games (a theology book, as some have found to their surprise)." - David Parlett, The Oxford History of Board Games