Over a hundred years ago there were no television sets, video games or organized sports for teens, so families and teens were left to entertain themselves. Parents played the games they had learned while growing up thus passing them down to their teens. Many of these games have become a part of the American culture as they are shared with successive generations. As our culture changes, new games as well as games from other cultures are introduced into our lives.

Many of the games from our own American culture that were passed down from generation to generation are not being played as extensively today. Years ago, extended families lived together under one roof so there were enough people in a home to make the games interesting, competitive and fun for all. teens also played games at school and in the neighborhood with other teens when home from school. These were usually games learned from older siblings and friends such as hop scotch, roly poly, and jump rope. A great variety of rhymes were learned and rehearsed as they skipped or jumped to the beat of the turning rope.

Folks who had a larger homes often had a parlor where they entertained their guests and played games. These games known as parlor games were excellent for passing the time during the long, cold winters. They included guessing games, word games and charades. There were table games such as dominoes, pickup sticks and tiddlywinks. Board games were popular and designed to be played by any age group and among the better known of these are chess, checkers and backgammon.

However, outdoor games also were popular as teens spent so much of their spare time playing outside. Games that needed teams were starting to catch on in the 1840s. Baseball was one such game which started with the British games of cricket and rounders. Different rules were made up as they went along by the teens playing baseball in their own towns and neighborhoods. The first formal rules for the game were issued in 1845 in New York and baseball became known as the national sport of the USA and a part of our culture that lives on today. Rival teams enjoyed pitting their prowess against other teams in the area. Everyone turned out to cheer their home team on to victory. Our own American culture through baseball has been shared with other cultures and we have adopted some of their games into ours.

One of the newest and most interesting of those games is the game of Kubb. It has been said that this game dates back to the Viking Age and therefore has earned the nickname of "Viking Chess." The rules may have changed somewhat as they are refined or adapted to suit the local participants in the game but the basic game is still intact.

There is a vivid description of Gotland in the Viking period in the best selling Swedish novel by Frans Gunnar Bengtsson. He tells of a Viking ship stopping at Gotland on one of its journeys and shows Gotland and the Gotlanders of that era to be more advanced than other Scandinavians of their time. Some of the influence of their culture has survived the ages and the game of Kubb is one example of the culture that has survived.

The Vikings were very adaptive as they learned to take advantage of whatever situation they found themselves in. They used whatever there was in the area to promote prosperity and progress, and rather than trying to kill everyone in the countryside as tradition has it, they tried to find a way to live, to set up shop, to raise their families and to mix in with the other cultures. The game of Kubb was just one of the ways they used what was on hand as they carved the wooden blocks and batons needed for the game from the wood gathered from the abundant forest land.

There are typically twenty-one game pieces used in the game of Kubb. Ten Kubbs are rectangular wooden blocks, there is one King Kubb which is a larger wooden piece sometimes with a crown design on top. Six sticks, or wooden batons are needed and four stakes, or markers, to delineate the corners of the pitch. This completes the equipment needed for the game of Kubb. Since there was considerable variation in the design of these pieces, they lent themselves to the creativity of the Vikings and Gotlanders as they carved the pieces from the beautiful hard wood native to their forests.

Although Kubb is not listed as one of the traditional games from Gotland, it claims the reputation for having been played in various places in Sweden early on. Gotland or Gottland, is an island in southeastern Sweden considered by some historians to be the original homeland of the Goths. The land was level and a great part of it was covered by forests.It became a commercial center and a very important city in the Baltic Sea. Gotland is famous for its medieval churches many of which are still in active use.

Kubb was ideally suited for the flat country of Gotland as the Gotlanders set up their rectangular pitch playing field. The dimensions were usually 5m by 8m but there are no official rules as to size of the field so it could be adapted in size for even the youngest of players. Usually the pitch was on grass, but Kubb can also be played on sand, snow, ice and dirt but the pitch should always be level.

Any number of players may play Kubb but typical matches are one on one or teams of two. Kubb is catching on by leaps and bounds in the USA because it can be played all year long by contestants of any level of skill and with a minimal amount of equipment.

The traditional game of Kubb may one day be one of those games passed on through our culture as it becomes more and more a part of the American scene.