Paying through the Nose, and Etymology of Shilling

Odin, they say, laid a nose-tax on ever Swede,—a penny a nose. (Grimm, *Deutsche Rechts Alterthümer*, p. 299.) I think people not able to pay forfeited "the prominence on the face, which is the organ of scent, and emunctory of the brain," as good Walker says. It was according to the rule, "Qui non habet in ære, luat in pelle." Still we "count" or "tell noses," when computing, for instance, how many persons of the company are to pay the reckoning. The expression is used in England, if I am rightly informed, as well as in Holland. Tax money was gathered into a brass shield, and the jingling (*sc…