Isle of Lewis Set.

The Isle of Lewis Chess Set.

I have a rather lovely chess set, its a replica of an ancient one found from the medieval age and is regarded as one of the most beautiful and significant finds with regards chess history. I personally find the black pieces very difficult to distinguish, that being said, it is a nice set to have. I took plenty of pictures and I shall type out in English the paperwork that came with it. I would be interested to see and hear about your sets….

In 1831 the sea carried away a sandbank at Androil, on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis, uncovering a mysterious stone building, shaped like a baking oven, that had been buried under several feet of sand. A peasant, working nearby found what he concluded to be a collection of elves and gnomes upon whose mysteries he had unconsciously intruded. The superstitious Highlander flung down his spade and fled home in horror,

Superstition in Lewis had survived in a powerful form. The island has few contacts with civilisation; it is the most northern of the Outer Hebrides, a barren, windswept land of rocks, peat moss, fishermen, cattle-farmers and weavers. Eight hundred miles of sea separates its western shores from Iceland. Its earliest inhabitants had left behind them immense sun circles of stone like those at Stonehenge, together with a legacy of belief in ghosts and Druid spirits. Thus, when the peasant first looked at the group of singular ivory figures in the building, it was not unnatural that they should appear to him as the pygmy sprites of Celtic folklore. However, he was soon induced by his wife to return to the spot and take the figures home.

He sold them to a local collector, who realised at once they were chessmen, There were 78 pieces in total, belonging to eight or more complete sets; 67 of them are now in the British museum, the rest in the national museum in Edinburgh. These compact Romanesque figures, carved from morse ivory – walrus tusks – are unique in the annuls of medieval art. Nothing quite like them has ever been found before or since, and experts are unanimous in regarding them as “the most astonishing chessmen in existence”.

The rook in the picture is however added, it is a replica of the Saxon tower at Earles Barton, Northamptonshire.

Comments and pictures of your sets most welcome.