The Game of the Goose

From The New York Times, Art and Design Section.

A Quirky Board Game With Versions Spanning 400 Years 

EVE M. KAHN FEB. 25, 2016

Adrian Seville has bought hundreds of board games, but he has hardly any interest in playing them. A retired university administrator living outside London, Dr. Seville has focused on collecting variants of the Game of the Goose, which was invented in the 15th century and remains in production. While its rules may be too simplistic for his tastes — players roll dice and try to beat one another to the 63rd square — he nonetheless described the collecting process as “highly addictive.”

The Grolier Club in Manhattan has borrowed about 70 of Dr. Seville’s finds for an exhibition, “The Royal Game of the Goose: Four Hundred Years of Printed Board Games,” running through May 14. On the boards’ tracks, players maneuver among squares that allow for leaps ahead or lost turns or slogs backward. The squares and the borders on Dr. Seville’s games are printed with images including everything from happy aristocratic lovers to Richard M. Nixon, cannibals, brutalized slaves, shipwrecks, brown envelopes with cash bribes and advertisements for dolls, tires, biscuits, breath mints and gas lighting.

A skating-rink version of the Game of the Goose made in Paris in 1900.CreditAdrian Seville Collection

Given the diversity of themes, Dr. Seville said, “All human life is here.” He has even seen the Game of the Goose adapted to promote sewage pumps. “Some are so dull that they’re actually interesting,” he said. He has paid up to thousands of dollars apiece for the games, which turn up widely at auction houses including giochidelloca.it, a website he set up with a fellow enthusiast, Luigi Ciompi. 

At the Grolier Club, a few of the games are laid out horizontally under glass; visitors can ask for playing pieces and dice at the front desk and try their hand at racing along the squares. [See exhibit/tour information below between the two asterisk rows].

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Wednesday, February 24-Saturday, May 14
Ground Floor Gallery Exhibition: "The Royal Game of the Goose – Four Hundred Years of Printed Board Games," curated by Adrian Seville. Free public tours of the exhibition, led by Grolier Club member Gretchen Adkins, will be offered every Tuesday, 1 PM-2 PM, during the run of the show: March 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, WEDNESDAY APRIL 6, April 12, 19, 26, May 3, 10.

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Goose or the Game of the Goose, was mentioned in an article I recently posted on January 23, 2016:

Chess, Gambling, and Cards: Tudor Indoor Pasttimes

In the USA a variation of the game is known as Chutes and Ladders (Snakes and Ladders), which itself is derived from an ancient Indian board game called Mokshapat or Moksha Patamu, and was played perhaps as early as the 2nd century BCE.  (See The Times of India, "Who Invented the Game of Snakes and Ladders?," October 8, 2008).

The Real Truth Behind Those Flying "Reindeer"

Attention all those who believe in Santa Claus a/k/a Saint Nicholas. The origin of flying "reindeer" goes back much farther than the red-coated, white-whiskered, gift-giving Wonder invented by an illustrator in the 19th century. I wonder if he was a student of the ancient classics? Hmmm... Check this out: Artemis, depicted at Potnia Theron (a/k/a Lady of the Beasts). Image, thanks to Mr. Don who posted it at Goddesschess, and doesn't her skirt look like a checkered gameboard now:

ARTEMIS POTNIA THERON
Museum Collection: Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze, Florence, Italy Catalogue Number: Florence 4209
Beazley Archive Number: 300000
Ware: Attic Black Figure
Shape: Volute krater
Painter: Signed by Kleitias
Date: ca 570 - 560 BC
Period: High Archaic

SUMMARY
Detail of Artemis, here depicted as the Potnia Theron (Lady of the Beasts), from the Francois Vase. The goddess is winged, and grasps a panther (or lioness) and stag by the neck.

Yes, it's true! The origin of those flying reindeer is none other than the Great Goddess Artemis flying through the air holding a sacred lionness in one hand and a sacred horned stag (a/k/a "reindeer") in the other! Dashing through the sky, She wings her way on high, waving a horned deer, she's looking for some beer...

Okay, so Irving Berlin I'm not. But the key elements of Santa Claus flying through the air in a sleigh pulled by "eight tiny reindeer" (19th century version of the legend) are featured, except Santa Claus is actually a Great Goddess: (1) Goddess/figure postulated to be a Goddess (2) flying through the sky (she can be a bird goddess, on a winged horse or in a chariot pulled by flying horses, or winged herself (3) closely associated with horned animals (such as stag, ram or unicorn), or other animals (those flying horses, for instance) and/or animals of power/rulership (lion/lioness, eagle and other birds of prey).

The other part of the legend is that she can bring blessings - or curses. In modern terminology and much more benign - gifts, or lumps of coal - just like old St. Nick.

Cf:
Rhiannon (Rhiannon flies like a bird through the sky and wouldn't you love to love her..., lyrics made popular by Fleetwood Mac in their hit song "Rhiannon"), who is closely associated (and may, indeed be an aspect of) the great Celtic Horse Goddess, Epona.

How about this very early candidate for being the original "Mother Goose?" Whenever I read about geese I am reminded, first of all, about how sacred the goose was in ancient Egypt and, secondly, how goose was the dish of choice served at Christmas in any household that could possibly scrape together the money to afford one in Dickens' England (for instance, fictional "Clerk" Bob Cratchett's family feasted on goose in Dickens' tale of loss and redemption in Scrooge a/k/a "A Christmas Carol.") The association of Goddess and goose is an ancient one, but in ancient Egypt, the sacred goose was a God known as Geb. Personally, I think something was lost in translation somewhere along the way, or perhaps the original Geb was a hermaphrodite and modern translators just don't "get it."

But that's going in a different direction, actually, since I think that this very old line drawing actually shows a skirted female riding atop a somewhat abstract style horse figure travelling through some trees...