Death Questions

[Jewel-ry]

I am doing the 78 card a week study and this week I am focusing on the Death Card. Questions I would like answered are:

My Fournier TdM card has no left foot !!! It is completely missing. It is not even cut off at the joint. It is further up than that. Does anyone know the significance of this?

Why does my Classical tarot (soprafino) card have an artists palette in it?

Why (in the TdM cards) does the skull have such an awful shape. It actually looks like he has a balaclava on!

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Thanks

J

[Rusty Neon]

hi jewel-ry ... Whether it's a right foot or left foot, depends on your reading convention.

The 1760 Conver and the 1930 Marteau also show the figure as having that foot missing. It may well have been a printer's error initially. However, in the tarot literature, esoteric explanations abound, that may or may not be useful for divination.

Paul Marteau: "The figure has only one foot to make it clear that death implies a disequilibrium and can only act on physical aspects and not on the spirit. [Death] is not harmony but is a consequence."

Alain Bocher likens the one footed man to the lame blacksmith ("forgeron boiteux") of Walhalla. Anyone know what the story of the blacksmith is about?

Marcel Picard goes on for slightly more than an entire page about the missing "right" foot - with different views depending on whether the foot is embedded in the ground, or has been cut off.

I'll look up some others if I get around to it.

Hope this helps.

[Rusty Neon]

This card can also teach us an important life lesson. If we carry around anything that functions as a weapon and aren't careful with its use, we can hurt ourselves too (just like the Death reaper who has cut off his own foot).

[Diana]

For me there have always been three possibilities.

1) The Hanged Man (previous card) had to cut his foot off to get free.

2) The foot is not missing, it's sunk into the black soggy ground.

3) The reaper has cut it off. I have hunted in vain (but I SENSE it's out there somewhere) what a left foot signified in the Middle Ages. I am sure it had a meaning that we have do not recognise anymore. Perhaps it has a reference to one of the Greek or Roman Gods. Or perhaps it refers to a proverb that has disappeared.

[HudsonGray]

I think, with the skull, it's not a cleaned skeleton, it's one that's had the skin shrink & decompose but end up dried hard as leather over the bones of the body (ever seen a cow carcasse that's been left in the field to 'go back to nature'? Ok, my relatives are all dairy farmers, they don't always dispose of the dead calves through the renderer). The skin doesn't disappear unless the body is on ground where leaf matter allows insects full rein at the soft tissues. If the tissues aren't taken care of within a week, they dry into their own sort of degenerated covering and will take a long time before the skeleton can be rid of them.

[Jewel-ry]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your views. At least I know now that the missing foot probably isn't a printing error!

It is definately his left foot that is missing and in fact, closer inspection does reveal a solitary foot not all that far away! Going by the pained look on his face, he may well have cut it off himself by accident! Ooch!! I quite like Rusty's idea of having to be a little bit careful with how we use our 'weapons' as we may hurt ourselves!

It could also be reinforcing the 'endings' meaning. Endings that can sometimes be quite abrupt, sweeping! Cutting out the 'dead wood', maybe?

I can also see the 'leathery' skin over the skull as being a possibility but need to work a little at its significance in the light of the card.

Thanks everyone!

J

[jmd]

It's also interesting to note that the Dodal, the Noblet and other early Marseille decks do, in fact, have the two feet depicted on the card...

...so why did especially Marteau (Grimaud) not have it?

It is also worth pointing out that both recent 78 card decks, the Camoin and the Hadar, have the skeleton with his two feet, but that the Félicité, which tends to follow the Grimaud, has the figure's left foot 'missing'.

Thanks also HudsonGray for such graphic description - it certainly adds a living imaginative dimension to one's reflections !

[Major Tom]

There is another little niggle that bothers me.

In many examples (and I attach one with a circle around the detail) death appears to wear a garment around her waist and this appears to have a pocket. What does death keep in her pocket?

[Mimers]

Originally posted by Diana
For me there have always been three possibilities.

1) The Hanged Man (previous card) had to cut his foot off to get free.

Diana, I love this thought! It makes perfect sense too. Another form of sacrivifice for the Hanged Man.

Also, perhaps the grim reaper is displaying that not even he is exempt from death.

Mimi