The Fool and his Spoon

Fulgour

Stirring the Pot

When I look at Le Fol in this image:
Click on LE FOL
I see the hat as a kind of handled crank.
Is it for pressing Tarots...which then fall
into Le Fol's sack ~ or making spaghetti!

But even a fool knows you eat spaghetti with a fork! :)
 

RChMI

Spoon

Le Mat is the beginning and end, and the end and beginnng of the journey. Le Mat is no vagabond, but a traveller who has experienced some of the finner and more urbane things in life. This is shown by the aspect of him carrying a "toilet spoon," in order to take care of Nature's Calls in a civilized manner... Serfs would wipe their arse with leaves or rags.
 

catlin

Do we have any source or information when it was customary for ppl to have each his/her own spoon? Maybe this date could lead us further in relation to tarot.

The mentioning of the animal bones brought up the image of the old hag of the fairytale "Hänsel & Gretel" by the Brothers Grimm to my mind where the witch wants to feel Hänsel's finger to see if he had grown fatter and he sticks out a chicken's bone to her to feel it.
 

Rosanne

There is maybe a thought that the spoon was the self knighting tool for a 'Lord of Misrule' feast (Le Fou being the Lord). Search under the Lord of Misrule and the associated ancient festival. ~Rosanne
 

catlin

Rosanne said:
There is maybe a thought that the spoon was the self knighting tool for a 'Lord of Misrule' feast (Le Fou being the Lord). Search under the Lord of Misrule and the associated ancient festival. ~Rosanne

Now that is an interesting thought. The spoon instead of a sceptre.
 

Fulgour

catlin said:
Do we have any source or information when it was customary
for ppl to have each his/her own spoon?
Hi :) catlin! Check out the guy's hat on the right...
Pieter Bruegel (1567): Peasant Wedding Feast

And I'll bet Mr. Bruegel (seated far right, in black)
brought his new deck of Tarot cards with him too!
 

Rosanne

Fulgour said:
When you say "would" do you mean "would" always
or "would" sometimes or "would" if you asked them?
Maybe thats where we get the 'Would-on spoon ' from, anyway explain to me how you would think the fools spoon is a toilet spoon- I would like to see the gymnastyics of using it lol.
On some decks the spoon looks like it stuck in the end of a flute. Another thing does this headgear on the fool remind you of this Lord of Misrule's Roll of womens hair etc from an article on wikipedia?

'Does not the champion, the lion-hearted man, the man who when armed is the admiration of his friends and the terror of his foes, loose his tunic to his ankles, twine a girdle about his breast, use a woman's sandal, put a roll of hair on his head in feminine fashion, and ply the distaff full of wool, and with that right hand which once bore the trophy, draw out the thread, and changing the tone of his voice utter his words in the sharper feminine treble? '
My attachment is from a very bad TdM deck by Lo Scarabeo ~Rosanne
 

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jmd

Personally, I do not think that the depicted size of the stick on the Fool's shoulder is likely to depict either a toilet nor soup spoon: the size seems to play against that idea.

The merits of considering the carrying (and depiction) of spoons in earlier times, however, is fascinating.

In post 52 of Le Mat, I also mention the (later) practice of workers seeking work holding their spade in their rack-sacks, and, if something of a 'spoon' (rather than a stick with rounded end on which to hold his sack and with which to defend himself), may be such an implement.
 

Northwind

I had always considered that the knob at the end of the stick was there to stop the Fool's bag from falling off.

This discussion is intriguing. "Toilet" in old usage was often used to refer to everything that one used to need to do to get ready for the day. It included face washing, application of make-up and so on. I saw on the net that Roman women use toilet spoons as part of their everyday "toilet" kit, and it had nothing to do with ...... ummm ...... the activities with which we associate toilets today. Toilet spoons were used to scoop cosmetics out of their pots for example. But those spoons were quite small.

If one considers the Fool a jester then it's not beyond imagination that he would have one in the manner of the Roman women. But such a big one?

Maybe this is just a joke by the artist, or maybe my original thoughts were right?