The Game Of The Goose or Goose game is a board game with uncertain origins. Some people connect the game with the Phaistos Disc (because its spiral shape), others claim that it was originally a gift from Francesco I de' Medici of Florence to King Philip II of Spain sometime between 1574 and 1587, while the latest theories attribute to the Templars the creation of the game. According to these theories the Templars, possibly inspired by other games or discs (as the Phaistos Disc) from the Holy Land, developed a game and a secret or encrypted guide to the Way of St. James, representing each numbered space in the game a different stage in this journey. Furthermore, the hidden messages would not be just in the game but in the monuments, cathedrals and churches along the Way to Santiago de Compostela.
In June 1597 John Wolfe had attested that the game existed in London. It is thought to be the prototype for many of the commercial European racing board games of recent centuries. The game is mostly played in Europe and seen as family entertainment. Commercial versions of the game appeared in the 1880s and 1890s, and feature typical old European characteristics such as an old well and children in clothes from the period. In the 1960s, the game company CO-5 marketed a variant called Gooses Wild.
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Famous quotes containing the words game of, game and/or goose:
“Truth is the cry of all, but the game of few.”
—George Berkeley (16851753)
“Intelligence and war are games, perhaps the only meaningful games left. If any player becomes too proficient, the game is threatened with termination.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“My neighbors tell me of their adventures with famous gentlemen and ladies, what notabilities they met at the dinner-table; but I am no more interested in such things than in the contents of the Daily Times. The interest and the conversation are about costume and manners chiefly; but a goose is a goose still, dress it as you will.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)