The mediæval chronicles, poems, and romances are full of references to the game. The anonymous author of the history of Ramsey monastery, writing about the year 1100, tells us that bishop Ætheric coming late one night to king Canute found him still playing chess, “regem adhuc scaccorum ludo longioris tædia noctis relevantem invenit.” Strutt quotes this passage in his sports and pastimes; and Sir F. Madden adds the following translation from a French manuscript of the thirteenth century. It is much to our present purpose, in illustration of the legends whence the subjects of mirror decorations were derived:— “Orgar was playing at the chess, A game he had learned of the Danes; With him played the fair Elstrueth, A fairer maiden was not under heaven.” The story is of a mission from king Edgar to earl Orgar in the tenth century. Chaucer again tells us how “They dancen and they play at ches and tables;” and in the merchant’s second tale he describes a chessboard:— “So when they had ydyned, the cloth was up ytake, A ches ther was ybrought forth; ... The ches was all of ivory, the meyne fresh and new, Ipulshid and ypikid, of white, asure, and blue.” A very curious passage occurs in a book originally written in French, in April 1371, and translated about the reign of Henry the sixth: a copy is in the British museum; _Harl._ 1764. “There was a gentille knight’s daughter that wratthed atte the tables with a gentill man that was riotous and comberous and hadd an evelle hede, and the debate was on a point that he plaide, that she saide that it was wronge: and so the wordes and the debate rose so that she saide that he was a lewde [ignorant] fole, and thane lost the game in chiding.” 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. [Illustration] 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.