Tarot: other animals

I realised after publishing my last post, about the horses in the tarot deck, that I had completely missed one, namely the horse in The Sun card. I have always thought the horse looks slightly embarrassed at carrying the naked child, and given the right heart situation it may even be thinking how ridiculous the amount of drama that is going on is.

I can only conclude that I wasn't concentrating when I wrote that post, because I also manage to miss out one of the more obvious horses on The smith deck, namely the horse which appears on the death card. My excuse for this is that when I think of the death card I don't actually think of that card I think of the Marseille card which of course doesn't show a horse at all. Personally I much prefer the picture of the skeleton treading on parts of dismembered bodies!

But the RWS deck is not short of other animals. One of the ways they often appear is in the carving of the characters Thrones, and usually depicted some characteristic of the character seated on the throne or the personality aspect it depicts. For example the king of Swords has airy butterflies on the back of his throne. The bald-headed emperor on the other hand has rams on his throne, which not only depict logical aspects of his personality but also his character.
The two cards which represents the mid point and end of the journey before beginning a new journey, the wheel of Fortune and the world, both depict animals in their corners which are variously interpreted.

Otherwise animals in the tarot can be interpreted different ways. The dog, for example, often refers to humans faithful companion, and this is very much how the dogs can be interpreted in the Fool and in the ten of pentacles. That said, the dog in the fall is variously interpreted. In some decks the dog is exposing the Fool's bottom and genitals. This is part of the tradition of The Fool being an actual object of shame, and one old deck (I have forgotten which) shows two little boys actually playing with the man's genitals. I'm not making this up! So in One Sense the dog, far from being a faithful companion is a source of embarrassment and humiliation. The other hand I have always thought that he made the warning the walking over the precipice. In the moon card the dog once again plays a different role of howling at the moon, and so can represent a natural source of warning of that which is strange or unknown.

What is represented by The Animals in the tarot cards is sometimes fairly obvious, such as the lion in the strength card. Some of the other animals are not as easily interpreted and in fact maybe more hidden. The Bird ( I'm not sure what sort it is) hillside the woman in the nine of pentacles is very obvious. I smiled at her feet is not so obvious, and neither is the lizard at the feet of the King of Wands. Similarly the queen of Wands's cat is well known, but it can take people a long time to see the rabbits on the queen of pentacles card.
The animals on the tarot cards can represent personality aspects, they can represent warnings, and in fact all the things that animals can represent the World of symbolism and mythology.

Incidentally if this post reads strangely it is because I am writing it free app for voice recognition. My employers have cut up for Dragon software, and in fact are so impressed with if they're thinking of getting it for everyone in the office. This is of course a free version, and has the advantage that in future I can accept no responsibility for the content of anything I right here!
The final picture is one from the filming of akenfield, which I touched on in the recent posts about the imagined country. I neglected to comment in my original post that the camera man looks as if he had a lovely hairy back, and I have since found a picture of him from the front which shows that the front is at least as hairy. This picture has nothing to do with tarot and it's appearance here is purely gratuitous.