Why sheep and goats?

In England, people once cut this board into the grass of the village green and played with pebbles. So we moved the game into a garden. The lines are sandy paths with stepping stones where they meet, and the pieces are sheep and goats out grazing.

Three in a row is still called a mill. Make one, and a goat walks off home to its barn.

A bit of real mill history

In English the game is also called merels or mill. The word morris most likely comes from merel, an old French word for a counter or token. It has nothing to do with morris dancing.

Nobody knows how old the game is. A board cut into the roof slabs of a temple at Qurna in Egypt is often said to be about 3,400 years old. That date is doubtful. Some of the scratchings there include Coptic Christian crosses, which are far younger, and historians say boards like these cannot be dated. Boards cut into Roman buildings suggest the Romans knew the game.

The Gokstad ship, a Viking burial from around 900 found in Norway, held a game board with nine men’s morris on one side and a tafl game on the other. In 1283, a book of games made for King Alfonso X of Castile described the mill game, including a version played with dice. In England, morris boards are scratched into the stone cloister benches of cathedrals such as Canterbury, Gloucester, Norwich, Salisbury and Westminster Abbey. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare has Titania complain that “the nine men’s morris is filled up with mud”. She means a board cut into the turf.

Six men’s morris, a smaller game on two squares with six pieces each, was also played in medieval Europe. It is the second board here.

Rule books do not all agree on flying, where a player down to three pieces may jump to any free spot. It is on here to start, and you can switch it off. In 1996 the computer scientist Ralph Gasser checked billions of positions and showed that, with perfect play on both sides, the game is a draw. His rules let a player with three pieces fly, as this page does.

The garden animals

• Bunny: moves at random, but grabs a mill more often than not.
• Hedgehog: looks at its own move and your reply, so it blocks your easy mills.
• Fox: thinks 4 moves ahead and builds mills of its own.
• Owl: thinks as far ahead as it can in under a second, and is hard to beat.

How to play

• You play the sheep and go first. Take turns placing one animal on any empty stone until both sides have placed all 9.
• Three of your animals in a straight row along one path make a mill. Each time you make a mill, pick one goat to send home. A goat that stands in a mill is safe, unless every goat is in a mill.
• Once everyone is placed, take turns moving one animal along a path to the next free stone. Stepping out of a mill and back in makes it again.
• With flying on, a side that is down to 3 animals can jump to any free stone.
• You win when the goats are down to 2, or when no goat can move. The same position a third time, or 50 moves in a row with no mill, is a draw.
• Beat an animal to meet the next one. Keep 7 or more sheep, with no undo, for 3 stars.

Tips

Leave the corners for later. A corner stone touches only two paths. The middle of each side of the middle square touches four, so a sheep there has more room to move.

Block every open two. When the goats have two in a row and the third stone is empty, put a sheep there. Two of those at once is a mill you cannot stop.

Build a swing mill. Set up one sheep that can step between two rows of two. Each step closes a mill, and the goats can only block one side.

Your turn

Nine sheep are waiting at the garden gate at the top of this page. Start with the Bunny and see how far up the ladder you get.