'The Fool (Italian I'll Matto, French le Mat or le Fou). In the older tradition of France & Italy [which I referred to before] the Fool is not normally a trump: it is an odd card that may be played as a 'excuse' for not following suit to the card led, to protect a high card from being lost, or to avoid spending a trump. It is therefore known in modern French as 'l'Excuse'. In the younger, central European tradition it has been transformed into the highest trump, but retains a Germanicized form of the word 'Excuse', various spelt Skus, Skys, Skiss, Stiess, etc.' (Ibid, p. 240)
The passage quoted comes in the context of the three most important cards in the tarot game: the other two are I & XXI. It is clear how the rules of the game have come up against the kabbalistic theory of the mother letters as related to the tarot, & the result is the uncomfortable fit I described before.
However I still don't have a problem with using tarot cards as divinatory tools (I mean, you could use a standard Anglo-American 52-card deck, or even dominoes, or I think drawing chess pieces out of a bag could have interesting results). If we throw the 'mother letters' theory out of the window, since it results in strange placements for the Fool & no agreement of which letters apply to which trumps, we are left with the rules of the game as an allegory for the divination.
Taking the earlier tradition for the Fool, he is the 'wild card,' representing the unexpected, the out-of-order, etc. We could even invoke him when we don't want to proceed in the way we have been. If you really want to go with the younger tradition of the Fool as highest trump, I suppose he could represent self-actualisation, or the abandonment of external standards & expectations. I think a divinatory meaning could be developed from the scores used in the game, but since I can't yet get my head round that, I'll not comment here! What I'm feeling my towards is the use of the tarot game rules as an allegory with a divinatory meaning. Have I commented before here that tarot started off life as a game? To quote Parlett as a disinterested, 'muggle', respected historian of card games:
'[...] Tarots were originally invented for playing games with (their occultic & fortune-telling functions date from the late eighteenth century) [...]' (Ibid, p. 238)
I'm also fascinated by the regional variants of tarot games. Parlett's run-down includes:
The modern French-suited tarot decks, known as Tarot Nouveau. I had one of these & gave it away, because I couldn't gel with the altered pictures on the trumps. Of course they can still be used to 'read', using the traditional meanings, or a new set, based on the renewed trump illustrations.
The Tarocco Piemontese (used in Piedmont & Lombardy). This is the double-ended deck for playing that I've talked about before: for me it best represents the junction between card-playing & divination. It gives some incredibly frank readings!
Tarocchino (of Bologna) is a 62-card deck. The twos to fives of the pip cards are omitted, while numbers 1 - 4 of the trumps are four Moors of equal rank.
I've always wanted a Sicilian deck (keep willing it, Hound, & one will appear for next to nothing). The highest trumps are 20 Jupiter, & 19 Atlas. The Devil is replaced by a Ship, & below the first trump is an even lower one called Poverty (Miseria). The Fool is called the Fugitive. It has the otherwise-extinct-in-Europe Italo-Portuguese suit symbols, & Ace to Four are omitted in three suits, & the Two & Three of Cups. The main purpose in having one of these for me would be to reawaken the sense of tarot mystery, that is lacking nowadays since we are so familiar with them. We need to get back to the sense of a strange (to British eyes) deck of cards, veiling unknown reality under symbols & images.
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