![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
It's Friday, and it's high time to do a guest blog! A little spoiler for next week: I have a brand new contribution lined up! Alayna Williams, author of Dark Oracle, is going to pop by, complete with contest. So, bookmark next Friday. :)
Alayna and I got to chatting about tarot cards over at Pocket After Dark, which reminded me of a brilliant novel by Charles Williams, The Greater Trumps. I knew next to nothing about Tarot prior to reading the novel, and Williams's use of the cards is, as per his usual, deeply symbolic and spiritual. In our game during the England trip (the "dirigible" game), I had a young Williams using Tarot cards to create protective circles, based on my memories of the novel. Below is an excerpt from the novel and (hurrah!) a contest. I'll send you a copy of The Greater Trumps for your own reading pleasure if you'll tell me what card you've drawn from a deck of your imagining. Take that in any direction you like. Contest ends on Wednesday the 22nd, so I can announce the winner on the 23rd, and get ready for Alayna to join us on the 24th!
(Also, feel free to comment even if you don't want to be entered in the contest, but let me know you don't want a prize. *g*)
--
She picked up the last card, that numbered nought, and exhibited it. It might have needed some explanation, for it was obscure enough. It was painted with the figure of a young man, clothed in an outlandish dress of four striped colours--black and grey and silver and red; his legs and feet and arms and hands were bare, and he had over one shoulder a staff, carved into serpentine curves, that carried a round bag, not unlike the balls with which the Juggler played. The bag rested against his shoulder, so that as he stood there he supported as well as bore it. Before him a dragon-fly, or some such airy creature, danced; by his side a larger thing, a lynx or young tiger, stretched itself up to him--whether in affection or attack could not be guessed, so poised between both the beast stood. The man's eyes were very bright; he was smiling, and the smile was so intense and rapt that those looking at it felt a quick motion of contempt--no sane man could be as happy as that. He was painted as if pausing in his stride, and there was no scenic background; he and his were seen against a flatness of dull gold.
"No," said Henry, "that's the difficulty--at least, it's the unknown factor."
"The unknown factor in what?" Mr. Coningsby asked."
"In--" Henry paused a second, then he added, "in telling fortunes by the Tarots. There are different systems, you know, but none of them is quite convincing in what it does with the Fool.... They are very curious cards, and this is a very curious pack."
"Why are they curious cards?" Nancy went on questioning.
Henry, still staring at them, answered, "It's said that the shuffling of the cards is the earth, and the pattering of the cards is the rain, and the beating of the cards is the wind, and the pointing of the cards is the fire. That's the four suits. But the Greater Trumps, it's said, are the meaning of all process and the measure of the everlasting dance."
Alayna and I got to chatting about tarot cards over at Pocket After Dark, which reminded me of a brilliant novel by Charles Williams, The Greater Trumps. I knew next to nothing about Tarot prior to reading the novel, and Williams's use of the cards is, as per his usual, deeply symbolic and spiritual. In our game during the England trip (the "dirigible" game), I had a young Williams using Tarot cards to create protective circles, based on my memories of the novel. Below is an excerpt from the novel and (hurrah!) a contest. I'll send you a copy of The Greater Trumps for your own reading pleasure if you'll tell me what card you've drawn from a deck of your imagining. Take that in any direction you like. Contest ends on Wednesday the 22nd, so I can announce the winner on the 23rd, and get ready for Alayna to join us on the 24th!
(Also, feel free to comment even if you don't want to be entered in the contest, but let me know you don't want a prize. *g*)
--
She picked up the last card, that numbered nought, and exhibited it. It might have needed some explanation, for it was obscure enough. It was painted with the figure of a young man, clothed in an outlandish dress of four striped colours--black and grey and silver and red; his legs and feet and arms and hands were bare, and he had over one shoulder a staff, carved into serpentine curves, that carried a round bag, not unlike the balls with which the Juggler played. The bag rested against his shoulder, so that as he stood there he supported as well as bore it. Before him a dragon-fly, or some such airy creature, danced; by his side a larger thing, a lynx or young tiger, stretched itself up to him--whether in affection or attack could not be guessed, so poised between both the beast stood. The man's eyes were very bright; he was smiling, and the smile was so intense and rapt that those looking at it felt a quick motion of contempt--no sane man could be as happy as that. He was painted as if pausing in his stride, and there was no scenic background; he and his were seen against a flatness of dull gold.
"No," said Henry, "that's the difficulty--at least, it's the unknown factor."
"The unknown factor in what?" Mr. Coningsby asked."
"In--" Henry paused a second, then he added, "in telling fortunes by the Tarots. There are different systems, you know, but none of them is quite convincing in what it does with the Fool.... They are very curious cards, and this is a very curious pack."
"Why are they curious cards?" Nancy went on questioning.
Henry, still staring at them, answered, "It's said that the shuffling of the cards is the earth, and the pattering of the cards is the rain, and the beating of the cards is the wind, and the pointing of the cards is the fire. That's the four suits. But the Greater Trumps, it's said, are the meaning of all process and the measure of the everlasting dance."
