What Is Kubb? The So-Called Viking Game That Has Taken Over British Gardens

There is a game that keeps appearing in the corner of British garden parties, tucked alongside the cool box and the folding chairs. It looks, at first glance, as though someone has forgotten to put the firewood away: a collection of small wooden blocks, a taller pin in the centre, and a handful of throwing sticks. That game is kubb. It is, once you understand it, one of the best garden games ever made.

You will have seen it described as a Viking game. That claim is everywhere on packaging, in pub gardens, on tournament websites. The honest truth is more interesting: kubb is genuinely Scandinavian, genuinely ancient in folk tradition, and genuinely brilliant to play. Whether the Vikings played it is, to put it gently, unverified. What we do know is that it has been played in Sweden for a very long time, that the first written record appears in 1911, and that it has been growing quietly in British gardens ever since the UK Kubb Championship was established in 2006.

Here is everything you need to know.

The History of Kubb: Viking Legend or Swedish Folk Game?

The word "kubb" means wooden block in Swedish regional dialect. The game is almost certainly a folk game with roots deep in Scandinavian outdoor life, the kind of thing passed between communities over generations without being written down. That is what makes the Viking attribution feel plausible to many people: if the game has no clear documented origin, perhaps it really does go back a thousand years.

The problem is that "plausible" and "documented" are not the same thing. The Swedish Kubb Association notes that the first confirmed written reference to kubb appears in a Swedish sports encyclopaedia published in 1911. Before that point, there is no written record of the game. That does not mean it is new: folk games by their nature predate written records. But it does mean the Viking narrative is a story we tell, not a fact we can verify.

What is not in dispute is the geography. Kubb is rooted in the island of Gotland, in the Baltic Sea, which has been the spiritual home of the game for as long as anyone can document. The UK Kubb organisation notes that the World Kubb Championship has been held in Rone, Gotland, Sweden every August since 1995. Gotland also happens to be one of the best-preserved sites of Viking-era Scandinavian culture, which may be where the association hardened into myth.

The game arrived properly in Britain in 2006 with the founding of the UK Kubb Championship. Since then it has spread steadily, appearing at village fetes, National Trust properties, pub gardens, and family gatherings across the country.

How to Play Kubb: The Rules Explained

Kubb is played between two teams of between one and six players each. The pitch is five metres wide by eight metres long, marked at each corner with a stake. Along each baseline, five kubbs (the small rectangular wooden blocks) are spaced evenly. The king, a larger block, stands upright in the exact centre of the pitch.

Teams take turns throwing the six batons underarm, attempting to knock over the opponent's baseline kubbs. Here is where it becomes tactically interesting: any kubbs knocked over during a turn are picked up by the opposing team and thrown from their own baseline into the field of play. These become "field kubbs," and they must be knocked over before you are allowed to target the baseline kubbs again. A team that leaves field kubbs standing has effectively handed their opponent a positional advantage.

The aim is to knock over all of your opponent's kubbs, both field and baseline, and then topple the king in the centre. Knock the king over before you have cleared all the kubbs, and you lose immediately. That single rule creates most of the tension in the final stages of a game.

The UK Kubb association maintains full rules and tournament formats if you want to play competitively. For a garden setting, the rules above are enough to play a genuinely good game.

The Tactics That Make Kubb Addictive

Kubb takes about five minutes to learn and considerably longer to master. The skill barrier to entry is low: anyone can throw a baton at a wooden block. But the decisions that accumulate over a game create genuine strategic depth.

The field kubb rule is the engine of the tactics. When your opponent knocks over your baseline kubbs, those blocks become your ammunition: you throw them into their half of the pitch to create field kubbs they must then deal with before they can attack your baseline again. A skilled team throws field kubbs to cluster together, making them easier to knock over. A team without that skill scatters them, and the next turn becomes very difficult.

The second major decision is baton throwing technique. Batons must be thrown with an underarm action, rotating end-over-end. Experienced players develop consistency in height, spin rate, and landing point. Even at social level, within a few games most people have found a throwing action they trust, and that progression feels satisfying.

Dr. Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play, has written extensively about how games with low entry barriers but deep skill ceilings sustain engagement across age groups. Kubb is a textbook example. The eight-year-old and the sixty-year-old are playing the same game under the same rules.

Why Kubb Works for Every Garden Party

The practical case for kubb is straightforward. Setup takes under three minutes. The rules can be explained in under five. There is no equipment to hire, no specialist knowledge required, and no minimum age once children are old enough to throw safely (around six). A game between two competent players takes roughly twenty minutes, but can be stretched comfortably to an hour if the teams are evenly matched.

Compare it with the other options typically available at a garden gathering. Rounders requires a bat, a ball, bases, and at least eight people. Croquet requires a pitch, a level lawn, and someone to explain the tactics. Badminton requires a net, a shuttle, and reasonable hand-eye coordination. Kubb requires none of this. You can play it on any reasonably flat surface, including light gravel, dry sand, and uneven grass, which is where the official pitch dimensions become somewhat academic.

The NHS physical activity guidelines for children and young people recommend at least sixty minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per day. Kubb does not hit vigorous, but it keeps people on their feet, moving between throwing positions, and engaged without sitting down. For mixed-age groups at a garden party, that is precisely what you want.

You can explore the full range of garden games at Jaques of London, including sets for younger children and more complex tactical games for adults.

Getting Started With Kubb

A full kubb set contains ten kubbs, one king, six batons, and four corner stakes. That is everything you need to play the official game. Jaques of London kubb sets are made from FSC-certified timber and are UKCA and CE independently tested. They are suited to garden use on grass, light gravel, and hard-packed soil.

Frequently Asked Questions About Kubb