CARD FORTUNE TELLING
i6
symbols were
first
used,
on French cards
of
the reign
of Charles VIL Thirty years later, we find many references to " Chess and Cards," showing the close popular
connection between the two games.
It is
a curious and fascinating point in this study of
the history of cards, that the
German invention
of en-
graving was directed to the production of packs of cards
not books
!
The
printing of the Bible in 1455 followed
shortly after the production of the
cards.
The
Tarot
suits,
first
packs of engraved
earliest suit values, apart
were Hearts, Leaves
from the
original
now
Clubs),
(Trefoil,
Acorns (Diamonds), and Bells (Swords or Spades).
So popular were the comparatively cheap engraved
packs of cards that every artist turned his attention to
them, and for some years the suits were represented in
scores of ways, before settling
down
to the
modern
uni-
and somewhat senseless series of Hearts, Diamonds,.
and Spades. Thus there were figures of men and
women, birds, beasts, fishes, flowers some cards were
square or oblong, some circular. In all these early en-
versal
Clubs,
—
graved packs, as in the ancient Tarot examples, every
card was a full design the simple pips of to-day date
from the beginning of the sixteenth century, and are
—
probably the result of a number of indecent
designs being produced.
rate indelicate
—or
at
any
—
It is important to remember that there was no actual
Queen on the genuine ancient Tarocchi cards, nor was
in both cases this
there a Queen in their game of Chess
change was made in the dandified atmosphere of Western
European Court circles. The original design was a Vizier
or Prime IMinister naturally in the Far East, and especially in those early days, women were conspicuous by
But quite apart
their modest absence from public view.
from that, both Chess and Cards are really fighting games.
—
—