Fractured Axel

Someone on Twitter posted this probably 17thC image of kite flying.



"Some kite-flying (seventeenth century?) doodled on a fragmentary title page of the medical & spiritual compendium known as the ‘Versehung von leib’ (Nuremberg, 1493). Part of a group of uncatalogued binding fragments@theULSpecColl"

"The piece of paper it's on is the title page of a book printed in Nuremberg in 1493, but that book may have been in England by the C17. The TP is all that survives (this leaf likely saved as it has a nice woodcut on the other side). It looks C17 to me but it's just a guess..."

https://twitter.com/liamsims/status/1351173497603682305

Tsk... single liners 

Andy S wrote:

Tsk... single liners 

Yet quite interesting

I honestly thought this was a joke when I saw the picture!

Nah, it''ll never fly with line that short, I reckon it must be an early lepidopterist, he's trying to catch the black dot

Roy - following the tweet and then the link to your page... am I reading it right that they used to set fire to the whole kite via the firecrackers on the tail?

https://reeddesign.co.uk/kites/kite-history.html

Andy S wrote:

Roy - following the tweet and then the link to your page... am I reading it right that they used to set fire to the whole kite via the firecrackers on the tail?

https://reeddesign.co.uk/kites/kite-history.html

Yes, after the bangers in the tail had gone off, the whole sail would have burnt - a Firedrake is a fire breathing dragon in Teutonic mythology.