hist-games: Halatafl

[Jane & Mark Waks]

Huette von Ahrens wrote:
 > All of my books [Murray,
> Bell, 
> etc.] when you look up "Fox and Geese", you will find
> a 
> notation that it is the decendent of Halatafl.  If I
> am using 
> old editions then I have to apologize.  

It's not a matter of old editions, so much as what appears to be 
speculation that has been repeated until everyone assumes that it is 
fact. Murray was probably the original source of this idea (being the 
oldest of the sources that seems to cite it); he's good, but far from 
infallible. And he really doesn't indicate any more reason to believe 
the connection aside from the similarity of names -- very weak evidence 
indeed.

As far as I can tell (and my sources are also scanty), all information 
about Halatafl seems to be largely speculative. Hence, we should be 
leery of overconfidence on the subject...

				-- Justin