Who Are You, Monsieur Diable?

The Devil’s in the details.

 Give the Devil his due.

A deliberate mistake in the weaving, so as not to tempt the Devil.

Speak of the devil–and he appears.

The devil you know is better than the one you don’t.

You handsome devil, you!

The Devil is not without a lot of cultural baggage, and not a nicely-matched luggage set either.

A Piteousness of Hanged Men

If you are looking to read Tarot cards by actually seeing them, rather than by an overlay of imposed or associative meanings, you could find no finer card to practice on than the Hanged Man, Le Pendu.

Worrying About the Vandenborre

The Spanish Captain and Bacchus, from the Vandenborre Tarot

The Vandenborre Tarot (sometimes known as the Flemish Tarot) is a Tarot de Marseille variant. It’s quirky, so of course I gravitated to it. What’s craziest about this deck? La Papesse has been replaced by Le’Spagnol Capitano Fracasse (The Spanish Captain) while Le Pape is replaced by Bacchus, astride a wine barrel. There are some other differences in imagery from the more standard TdM decks, but those variations are shared with other decks such as the Vieville.  To me, these two cards really stand out as the unique features of the Vandenborre.