Trivial Matters - Flying Money
Chinese Flying Money?
I used to collect an entertaining trivia column written by L. M. Boyd. The column, “Q & A: Puzzles, Predictions, Problems,” included medieval and ancient period trivia. Here are some more of my favorite excerpts. I hope you enjoy the silly stuff.
1 – Alexander the Great, Louis XIV and Napoleon hated cats, it’s said, because those imperious potentates couldn’t stand anyone who didn’t come when called.
2 – Ancient histories of the Chinese indicate they found it so easy to carry their paper currency—the world’s first—that they called it “flying money.”
3 – In Shakespeare’s time, smugglers brought boatloads of untaxed contraband ashore at British seasides. Royal guards hunted them. But to let them know when no guards watched, lookouts on land signaled with firelight. The meaning of those signals wound up in the idiom: “The coast is clear.”
SCA, Society for Creative Anachronism, medieval, middle ages, renaissance, history, LM Boyd, L.M. Boyd, trivia, trivial matters, Alexander the Great, Alexander, Napoleon, cats, cat, ancient china, china, Chinese, paper currency, flying money, Shakespeare, smugglers, royal guards, coast is clear
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