Making Money

27 Wednesday May 2026

Tags

Athens, Augustus, Brutus, cattle, Celtic tribes, Charlemagne, coins, deniers, Diocletian, Lydia, Philip II, Queen Victoria, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, weregild, William the Conqueror

As always, welcome, dear readers.

In my last posting, “Blood Money” (20 May, 2026), I mentioned that, in early Western history, weregild, that is, compensation for a killing, might be paid in cattle,

or in money, more specifically, in the Merovingian/Carolingian kingdom, for which we have reparation lists, in a coin called a “denar” (more modern “denier”).

I think that we can assume that cattle might have been used before money, suggesting just how old such a custom must have been.

Money, in the Western world had first appeared in the 7^th century BC, in Lydia, in western Asia Minor.

(you can read more about Lydian coinage here: https://www.worldhistory.org/article/797/the-importance-of-the-lydian-stater-as-the-worlds/ )

This is a rather crude coin, but, picked up by the Greeks, coins became more sophisticated, commonly produced by city-states with emblems of that state and of its divine patron stamped on them, as in this Athenian coin, with Athena and her owl.

The first Western ruler to put his own head on a coin appears to have been Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, in the 4^th century BC.

Philip has also put his name on the reverse, in the possessive case, saying “of Philip”, next to the horseman. This is a big claim: does he mean the horseman or the coin or maybe the silver of which the coin is made? In fact, I think that it’s a greater claim: that, because of the silver—and probably the horseman, as well—Philip has the backing—and therefore the right—to produce such coins, giving them their worth.

And this is an important claim: anyone might produce a piece of metal with a decoration of some sort on it, but what is its worth unless there’s something—or someone—substantial behind it to guarantee that worth?

The reverse is true, as well: if you can produce such coins, then you must have a certain worth, as well.

A perfect example of this thinking may be seen in this well-known coin from the last century, BC.

It is a coin issued by one of Caesar’s assassins, Brutus, and, on the reverse (the back), he’s stating his claim to be believed: 2 daggers, a liberty cap, and the date: the Ides of March. This implies that, on the Ides (the 15^th–of March, in this case), with a knife, Brutus participated in the freeing of the enslaved Roman state (the cap was worn by a slave in a liberation ceremony)—when he was involved in Caesar’s murder.

On the obverse (the front) is his family name, his portrait, his claim to be an official of the state (“IMP”—short for “Imperator”—that is, the holder of “imperium”, the state’s power of life and death over citizens, given to magistrates, governors, and generals when they were sent out of Rome on a mission), and the name of the master of the government mint which issued the coin, Lucius Plaetorius Cestianus.

Putting all of this together, it asserts both the claim that the coin has value and that the person under whom it was issued has the state’s backing to have done so—with the added claim that the person depicted on the coin had that authority because he was involved in the liberation of the state from a tyrant: the coin, then, of a (self-appointed) hero of the Republic.

This is an unusual approach as, mostly, governments simply assert their power by issuing currency—often, in the later West, by modeling their coins on those of their illustrious predecessors, as Charlemagne clearly did on this coin, depicting himself as if he were a Roman emperor (that wreath on his head even goes as far back at Philip II) and making a Roman-style claim—

that he holds the imperium, as well as the title which the Roman Senate had awarded Octavian, “Aug”, “Augustus”, which, after Diocletian

had divided the Roman empire in 293AD, had been the title for the two senior rulers.

(“co-emperor” = Augustus and “Caesar” = each Augustus’ assistant)

In the Gallo-Celtic world, coins were first issued by tribes (probably through their kings)—this is a coin of the Lingones, a tribe from east central Gaul.

It would appear that the practice was extended to their Celtic cousins, in Britain, as we see here, in this coin from the Atrebates, who lived in the Thames valley.

(You can read more about British Celtic tribal coins here: https://coinweek.com/the-ancient-celtic-coinage-of-britain/ )

When the Romans arrived after 43AD, these coins disappeared, to be replaced by standard Roman issues, but, through the centuries which followed, it was still a mark of authority that a ruler would issue coins, as in this of Alfred the Great, king of the Anglo-Saxons, 886-899AD,

or this of William the Conqueror (ruled England 1066-1087),

or this of Queen Victoria (ruled 1837-1901).

(Notice the rather grandiose contrast in what’s being told you on the obverse of this coin vs that of Charlemagne–not only is she Queen of Britain—by the grace of God—“Dei Gra-tia”—but Defender of the Faith”—”Fid-em Def—ensor” and, post-1877, Empress of India—“Ind-iae Imp-eratrix”)

Interestingly, the British government still used the ancient Germanic system of coin value (perhaps inherited from those same Merovingian/Carolingians who produced the “denar” from the beginning of this posting) until 1971, when it shifted to the decimal system used in much of the rest of the world. (Here’s a really useful article on pre-decimal coinage: https://www.royalmintmuseum.org.uk/journal/history/pounds-shillings-and-pence/ And I can’t resist this wonderful skit from Horrible History on Tudor money: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0Qv9uSNWCk )

And this brings us to the point (at last) of this posting: a new coin in the UK: a 50p (that’s 50 pence or half a pound in post-1971 money)

with a special reference for those of us who read and enjoy Tolkien: it’s a coin commemorating the 25^th anniversary of the premier of the Lord of the Rings films (You can read more about it here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/articles/cgmpneen13mo )–a fine gesture, but, note that, even as it has images from the Tolkien world on the reverse, on the obverse there’s all of this—

the King’s profile—just like Philip II’s from the 4^th century BC–with the same D[ei] G[ratia] and even F[idem] D[efensor] you can see on Victoria’s coin, lacking only the claim to be IND[iae] IMP[erator]. Perhaps some things never change?

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Stay well,

Be glad that you don’t have to do arithmetic problems in pre-decimal coinage,

(This chart is from that Royal Mint Museum site listed above)

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC,

In case, looking at them, you’ve wondered why those early coins seem so random and lumpy, see: https://www.numisdon.com/ancient-coin-minting-techniques/

PPS

For more on coins and Mordor, see: “In Mint Condition”, 4 August, 2021.

Into Those Woods

17 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by Ollamh in Fairy Tales and Myths, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Narrative Methods

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Tags

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Athens, Burnham Wood, Caspar David Friedrich, Circe, Der Blonde Eckbert, Edmund Burke, Fangorn, forest, Gespensterwald, Grimm Brothers, Haensel and Gretel, Horace Walpole, Into the Woods, Ithilien, Jacob Grimm, John Bauer, John Walter Bratton, Lorien, Ludwig Tieck, Macbeth, Mirkwood, Misty Mountains, N.C. Wyeth, Nienhagen, Odysseus, Old Forest, Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas, Robert Frost, Robin Hood, Romanticism, Sir Walter Scott, Snow White, Steven Sondheim, Straparola, Teddy Bears' Picnic, The Castle of Otranto, The Fire Swamp, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Princess Bride, Tolkien, Treebeard, Waldeinsamkeit, Waverly, Wilhelm Grimm, Woses

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

There is an early-twentieth-century American popular song called “Teddy Bears’ Picnic”, by John Walter Bratton. This was first published, in 1907, as “The Teddy Bears Picnic: A Characteristic Two-Step”,

but in 1932, it acquired both its current title and lyrics, beginning,

“If you go down to the woods today,

You’re sure of a big surprise…”

Here’s a link, if you’d like to read more. And here’s a link to the first recording of the version with its lyrics, from 1932. WARNING: it has a catchy little tune!

This song came to us because we’ve been thinking about forests and their frequency and importance in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Woods have always been spooky places in folktales. Think of Haensel and Gretel, for example,

or Snow White,

or even the story of Odysseus and Circe, as Circe’s house is set deep in a forest.

Among our interests is Romanticism–both in itself because it’s in Romanticism that modern adventure stories really take off (for the supernatural, think Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto, 1764; for historical, Sir Walter Scott, Waverly, 1814). The early Romantics were fascinated by the forest, both as a place of beauty and of fear. This is not surprising, for several reasons. First, they were influenced by the writings of Edmund Burke (1729-1797),

who published a famous essay, “Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful” in 1757 (this is a 1770s reprint).

Burke was interested in human reactions to things which, basically, are either awe-inspiring (how about this?)

or beautiful

Awe-inspiring (to which may even be added a little terror– you, sharp-eyed readers have probably already noticed that there are the remains of a crushed ship in the ice in the first picture) is a sort of opposite of the beautiful– we say “sort of” because they can be related, which is why we chose two pictures by the same artist– our favorite early Romantic artist, in fact, Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840).

This brings us to this Friedrich painting:

There are lots of his paintings in which we are standing behind someone who is looking off into the distance– as in the one we chose for “the beautiful”. As you can see in the above, here we have a man contemplating a path into a snowy wood. (Which reminds us of a poem by the American poet Robert Frost, 1874-1963, and we can’t resist adding it here, just for the pleasure of it:)

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

There is menace here (note the crow on the stump in the foreground…), and yet it’s beautiful. And tempting– and that’s part of the sublime, as well.

Besides their interest in Burke, the early Romantics were also deeply interested in folktales. People had been collecting and publishing such things in early modern Europe since at least Straparola in the 16th century, but, from the Romantics, we have the work of these two men, highly-intelligent brother-scholars, the Grimms, Jacob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm (1786-1859), whose work, either in itself on in adaptation, is known throughout the whole western world.

The story of Haensel and Gretel comes from them, in fact (as does Snow White). Because of a famous short story by Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853),

“Der Blonde Eckbert” (maybe “Fair-haired Eckbert” in English?), there is a word in German for this fascination for the woods, Waldeinsamkeit, meaning something like “The Sense of Being Alone in the Forest”. Like “sublime”, this word has a wide range of feeling to it, including that sense of aloneness/being alone/loneliness/ mixed with the pleasure of being alone in the forest. In the story, the word is contained in a little poem sung by a strange bird, which begins:

“Waldeinsamkeit

Die mich erfreut

So morgen wie heut

In ewger Zeit

O wie mich freut

Waldeinsamkeit.”

“Aloneness in the forest–

That delights me,

As today so tomorrow

In eternal time

Oh how it delights me

Aloneness in the forest!”

In the case of JRRT, however, although he was well known to be quite passionate in his love for trees, forests in his work do not always appear to be places for pleasure. (And how can we not be reminded of that moment in the film, The Princess Bride, when the hero and heroine are at the edge of the Fire Swamp, a kind of haunted wood,

and the hero, Westley, says, “It’s not that bad. I’m not saying that I’d like to build a summer home here, but the trees are actually quite lovely”– and only a moment later the heroine, Buttercup, is attacked by a spurt of flame from the ground itself?)

Out first wood in The Hobbit is the one into which several of the dwarves disappear, captured by three rather dimwitted trolls.

When we look at this and at other JRRT illustrations, we are reminded of the world of the Swedish illustrator, John Bauer (1882-1918), some of whose fairy tale forests bear a certain strong similarity in their regularity.

What’s surprising is that, in northern Europe, there actually appear to be stands of wood which actually look very like this. Here’s Nienhagen, in northern Germany.

It’s a beechwood (one of JRRT’s favorite trees and ours, too– remember this big beech from N.C. Wyeth’s Robin Hood illustrations?

Nienhagen has another name, however, Gespensterwald, “Ghostwood”, and, seeing this next picture and comparing it to Bauer’s paintings, we imagine that you’d agree with us that this is an appropriate nickname.

Across the Misty Mountains, we come to Mirkwood, with its disappearing Elves, sleepy stream, and giant spiders– hardly an inviting place.

The forests of The Lord of the Rings are a bit mixed. There is the Old Forest, which is so hostile that is has to be kept off with cutting, burning, and a hedge and, in its depths, there is Old Man Willow, who almost swallows several unwary hobbits.

Then there is Lorien, a place of safety and healing for the Fellowship.

And, last, there is Fangorn, with its Ents, especially the thoughtful and ultimately sympathetic Treebeard.

These are principal woods– there are also the woodlands of South Ithilien, there Faramir

and his rangers lurk, as well as the unnamed wood where the Woses live, but it’s the people there who are the focus of the story, not the forests.

This sense of a wood being dangerous goes far beyond fairy tales and even JRRT, of course. Shakespeare has several puzzling forests– as in the wood outside Athens in A Midsummer Night’s Dream

or the traveling Burnham Wood in Macbeth

And there is even the wonderful Steven Sondheim musical, Into the Woods (1986), in which going into the woods has a magical/metaphorical side.

But we’ll leave you where we started– with JRRT– and a single tree…

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC,

doubtfulsea

~ adventure fantasy

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Making Money

Into Those Woods