288.HOW DID SKIING BEGIN?
You may think that skiing is a modern sport, but it is actually one of the oldest forms of travel known to man! The word itself comes from the Icelandic word scidh, which means snowshoe or piece of wood.
Some historians claim that skiing goes back to the Stone Age, and they have found ancient carvings which show people on skis. Long before Christianity appeared, the ancient Lapps were known in Scandinavia as Skrid-Finnen, or “sliders.” They even had a goddess of ski, and their winter god was shown on a pair of skis with curved toes!
287.HOW DID PLAYING CARDS GET THEIR NAMES?
All kinds of claims have been made about the invention of playing cards. Some people think they originated with the Egyptians, others give the credit to the Arabs, or Hindus, or Chinese.
We do know that playing cards were first used for foretelling the future and were linked with religious symbols. Ancient Hindu cards, for example, had ten suits representing the ten incarnations of Vishnu, the Hindu god.
286.HOW DID MUSIC BEGIN?
Did you ever walk in a forest and suddenly come upon a little brook bubbling merrily along its path? Didn’t it sound like music? When the rain pitter-patters against a roof, or a bird sings heartily — aren’t these like music?
When man first began to notice his surroundings, there was a kind of music already here. And then when he wanted to express great joy, when he wanted to jump and shout and somehow express what he felt, he felt music in his being, perhaps before he was able to express it.
