The Happy Squirrel card

TemperanceAngel

I keep thinking:

*Now where else have I seen that happy squirrel, I can see the image in my mind but just can't place it....*

*Squirrel....animation....yellow....green....aahhhh got it!!!! It's HOLMES avatar!!!!!!!!*

XTAX
 

Aura Wolf

Just wanted to mention, I'm a Simpsons junkie (meaning, I've watched them about 2-6 times a day since I was a kid. It's bad). Anyway, I've seen that episode with the fortune teller several times and I'm sure she doesn't jump up and run off. She gasps when she first sees the card, as if it's something very bad, and then when Lisa asks her if it's bad, she says quite calmly and slyly, "Possibly. The cards are vague and mysterious." And then she proceeds to read Lisa's future, where she fortells her marrying the English lad she meets in university... perhaps you two are recalling a different episode? Ie. the one where they all visit the gypsy and Homer catches on fire and ruins her shop, and she starts screaming at him and wonders, "why didn't I see this coming!" with her tarot cards reading "the Flaming Jerk" and "the Ruined Gypsy" :D Just a possibility.

But ANYWAY :D Back to the Happy Squirrel. I'm a little curious about this, because that is where the idea stemmed from isn't it? Why, for example, make a tarot card out of it? I know the Victoria Regina was only a downloadable version (or so I understand?) but then there is the International Icon. I'd like to see what Rota has to say about this. Was it a joke, or meant to be used in reading? Or both? :) Perhaps it just influences the cards around it in some way?
 

TemperanceAngel

Dead Star I love the episode where Homer goes to the gypsy, esp. the way the lepricorn talks at the end....gives me giggles every time!!
XTAX
 

Umbrae

Dead Star said:
... but then there is the International Icon. I'd like to see what Rota has to say about this. Was it a joke, or meant to be used in reading? Or both? :) Perhaps it just influences the cards around it in some way?

On another website which I will not mention (because it might be misconstrued) there is an interview with Rota, who very briefly mentions the Happy Squirrel.

I for one am convinced that it was supposed to be included with the TdM, but there was confusion about L'écureuil heureux, L'Escargot Lent, and the subsequent numbering issue.

Had we been discussing the Tarot de Deutsch (the TdD), perhaps the difference would have been between das glückliche eichhörnchen and schreckliche französische schnecken. See? No problems.

So one must go to the source.

As for the fortune teller running away, that was started by a poster long ago who did little to no research on the thorny problem.
 

Alta

hahaha, well put umbrae.

Since I have zero connection with tarotgarden I'll say that's where the interview is. Link at the very tip top of the page. He mentions the HS briefly. No mention of it in the LWB that comes with the deck though.
 

Umbrae

Perhaps La Ardilla Feliz simply reminds us to remember where we buried our nuts, for warming on the soon to be lit bonfire of the LWB’s.
 

Simone

Nevada said:
Maybe it means Plague. If you want to take your dog with you to a campground in my state, it's a good idea to call ahead and ask if any squirrels have died of plague recently. If so, then you're not allowed to bring a pet (nor would you want to!).

Maybe it's only bad press that blamed the rat for the spread of Plague through Europe centuries ago. Maybe it was really this innocent-looking squirrel!

Nevada runs screaming from the room.

Well, rodents have always had this bad reputation (rats for plague, mice turn up in all kind of fortuneteller's oracles (Lenormand, Russian Gipsy, for example) to indicate someone/thing is gnawing on your money or stealing.

But there's a fact: rodents have fleas and lice (as have other animals, too), and it's them, and not the rodents, that are responsible for plague and other epidemies. The fact that the rodents live so close to humans (and are often easy to make hand-tame) makes that they can transmit their (un)happy gift quite easily. (this vermin needs warm bodies to survive, and as soon as their host dies, they go looking for a new warm body to live on.

So, a squirrel, even a happy one, could it be seen as the messenger of all kind of vampirism and plagues - in every respect? If you get this card, beware of either (i) being the one bringing in the doom and disturbence, the one bringing in the negative vibes and contaminating atmospheres with it, or (ii) of others like that?

There are other things that make out a squirrel though: they bury their nuts - which can ce seen as positive as well as negative. Positive: they know how to preview hard times and prepare for it; negative: they might be very egotistic, hiding their treasures from everybody else - not wanting to share.

They have a funny way of protecting their territory: if a stranger (me, on a walk) gets in, they sit high above ground on tree branches, looking down, swishing their tails, and nag! (made me laugh). Nagging squirrels, you should hear them :D

So this card might also indicate a person that uses inadequate methods of defending his territory, thus being scared to be had, he hides all he has behind an army of vermin to protect himself...

Just a few thoughts on squirrels...

Love and laughter and be happy ever after :joke:
Simone
 

Aura Wolf

I love this thread :D I love these ideas.
 

ncefafn

Remember all those bad things that happened to Bullwinkle? And who was Bullwinkle's best friend? Nuff said.

The evil of the Happy Squirrel card can only be countered by the Boris and Natasha cards.

Kim