Universal Fantasy - Death

This card is the reason I got this deck. I absolutely love this image! I spent ages looking at it before I even noticed the dead? dying? guy in the foreground

The infernal figure of that horse gets me every time. I love that Death is a young man, not old and wizened, or a skeleton. His right hand is whole, but the left, curled around the tree, is skeletal. Is he only just in this world? Has he arrived moments before in a cloud of smoke and dust, glowing with fire, to collect the deceased man? How did the deceased die? There's no mark on him, and his sword is not bloodstained. Are those roses at the left front of the image? What is their significance?

I'd love to hear others' impressions of this wonderful card.

\m/ Kat

Most Cool Death Card I've Seen

I bought this deck based on the five of Chalices on the box, but the Death card took my breath away when I saw it.

Death as a healthy looking man; the muscular dark horse; the fallen warrior with sword still in hand but with no apparent wound. The amber colored clouds in the background could be the sky after battle. There are strong Valkyrie connotations to this card which makes me wonder if the Death-figure is male or female.

Death here is doing his job. He comes for this fallen man not because Death is evil or scary, but because Death is just doing his work. He doesn't have a scythe or a skeleton, because he's not trying to scare people. If he didn't do his job, then the whole cosmos would be thrown off balance. Death absorbs stagnant or dead energy so that new energy can be created. (He touches the tree and absorbs its energy.)

Death is one of the reasons I got this deck, I love it.

One of my first thoughts was, is it the black-clad figure with the horse the same person as the one lying on the ground, looking back at the remains of his old self while getting ready to move on astride his impatient magnificent horse? There seems to be affection, even regret in his eyes. A necessary transformation and shedding of the old self, but difficult to let go of the attachment to trusted old patterns.

The figure on the ground, is he really dead? Or is the rider and the horse the dream of the sleeping man? What would that dream mean? Fear of endings, fear of the coming battle and its consequences? Or realisation his old life is over and the sword in his hand is the new reality, he needs to put his armour on, find a horse and go.

Or the battle is over, he needs to let go of the sword, wake up and smell the roses, because life goes on.

Just some alternative stories that have come to me when this card has appeared in readings.

The Last Goodbye?

There's an interesting idea - the Man-in-Black looks on the pale, seemingly lifeless man could be the Pale Man's Fetch, the Ancestral Spirit one sees before dieing.

A very striking card indeed. I like that there seems to be no
wound on the man in the foreground. It makes me wonder if
he is dying simply because "his time has come" - hence in
meaning, we might not always be able to distinguish the cause
of the death of a situation... it is simply the time for it to pass
on now.

It is ironic that the Death figure is so lively, fresh looking and
just so alive. Perhaps story-wise, preciding over the death
of others gives him his own reward of eternal youth?

Where did Death come from to begin with? Was he born/created
in this role or has he ascended into it or been promoted from
former humanity? If so, what did he do to deserve such a position?
Is it a punishment that he is in this role, or a reward?

This deck is so vivid and the stories that spark from it are amazing...

The warrior is death and reborned in to something new.

Okay, I want to catch up, but to do it all in one day would probably be annoying, so I'm going to do 2 a day.

I decided to pick another card randomly from the deck after I reviews 10 of Swords, and this is the first card I pulled out.

This is one of the few cards that also made me choose this deck. I don't really like Death being portrayed as a skeletal figure with a big scythe. I'm a BIG fan of the Sandman comics, and I'll tell you I was drawn to this card because of the way Death stood there with his black robe, and the whiteness of the fallen man greatly reminded me of Dream, which immediately caught my attention.

Death looks peaceful, but focused on the job at hand, his (beautiful) horse waits patiently.

The fallen man has a sword but no marks. I cannot tell if he has shoes, but his pants seems to be raggedy. Is he white from death, or was he poisoned? He looks poor to me. Why is there no one around him, why does he have no horse? He doesn't look like anyone of importance, is he an orphan?

I get the feeling that maybe the man was a thief, living in the woods, a loner, someone easily forgotten, but it shows that Death forgets no one, everyone is treated the same in death.

Is Death taking a moment to mourn the man? Though Death looks to be very focused, I feel he has a gentle, sympathetic look on him.

This card is certainly breathtaking, I totally agree with everyone above! In fact, this depiction of Death is very close to my personal 'mythology', so I absolutely love it!

The fact that the young man has no obvious wounds gives me a similar feeling - that 'his time has come'. Maybe, the wound was really small, maybe, he just smelled the weird poisonous 'roses' by his side and fell asleep - forever.

But here comes the Death. There's nothing scary about him - only the impression of someone very strong and imminent. I'm sure he appeared in this role when the Universe arose, when the Time first moved forward - because time is death. And while his one hand is bones, death and decay, his other hand is life, birth and flesh.