Occult turn of the cards
QUESTION What is the origin of Tarot cards?
TAROT cards were used in 15thcentury Italy as illustrated playing cards for gaming. They did not became associated with fortunetelling until the 18th century.
Trick-taking card games, where one of the four suits is designated as a trump or triumph suit, were popular throughout Europe by the late 14th century.
In the early 15th century, a fifth suit of illustrated cards, the
trionfi, was added to serve as a permanent trump suit. These were illustrated with animals, flowers, hunting scenes or moral allegories.
The first known deck with an extra trump suit was commissioned by Duke Filippo Maria Visconti of Milan in 1425. The deck was devised by court astrologer Maurizio da Tortona and painted by artist Michelino da Besozzo.
The cards no longer exist, but Da Tortona’s book describing their allegorical significance is in Paris’s Bibliotheque Nationale.
The oldest surviving decks are known as the Visconti-Sforza Tarot, a term used to refer to the incomplete sets of 15 decks from mid-15th century in museums, libraries and private collections around the world.
These contain much of the imagery we associate with occult Tarot: figures such as The Emperor, the Empress, The Knight of Cups, The Damsel Of Swords, Hope, Charity and, of course, Death.
Ever more elaborate cards were used by the nobility to play a bridge-like game known as tarocchi. It spread to France, where it was renamed Tarot.
The cards were not regarded as mystical until the late 18th century when the occult came into vogue.
French mystic Antoine Court de Gebelin wrote The Primeval World, Analysed And Compared To The Modern World, in which he argued that the Tarot held the magical secrets of Egyptian god Thoth.
In 1785, Jean-Baptiste Alliette, writing as Etteilla, published a treatise on using Tarot cards in divination and formed the esoteric Society For The Interpretation Of The Book Of Thoth in 1788. Alison Moorhead, Arundel, Sussex.
QUESTION Why do RTÉ news presenters stress the final ‘e’ in Portlaoise?
WHEN RTÉ news presenters pronounce the final ‘e’ in Portlaoise, they’re perfectly correct in one sense.
In Irish it is correct to pronounce the ‘eh’ at the end of Portlaoise, as the ending is the tuiseal ginideach (genitive case) of Laois but in English it has become common practice not to pronounce the last ‘e’ in the town’s name.
Most people living in Portlaoise and speaking English follow the usual English pronounciation of the town’s name and drop the ‘eh’ at the end. In English, the name of the town is pronounced ‘Port Leesh’.
It’s one of the two town names in Irish that cause a lot of grief, which RTÉ acknowledges in its style guide to pronunciation for newsreaders. The other is Dún Laoghaire, which should be spoken as Dhoon-lay-re or Dhoonlee-re but not as Dunleary.
In the case of Portlaoise, the town’s original name of Maryborough goes back to 1557. Before then, the settlement had a number of names including Port Laois; Campa and Fort Protector. It was renamed Maryborough in honour of the then sitting queen in England, Mary, and the name of the surrounding county was changed to Queen’s County. After the Irish Free State came into being in 1922, quite a number of town names were changed like Navan, which in 1922 was given the Irish name, An Uaimh, although today hardly anyone uses it. The name of Maryborough wasn’t changed until 1929 when it became Portlaoighise, later shortened to Portlaoise, while Queen’s County got a new name as well: Co. Laois. These days, some English names for towns and counties still play havoc with visitors to Ireland who are unfamiliar with local linguistic nuances. They wouldn’t known that Cahir in Co. Tipperary is pronounced ‘care’, that Youghal in Co. Cork is pronounced ‘yawl ‘ or that Killaloe in Co. Clare is spoken ‘Kill- a – lou’ . The small number of towns that have specifically Irish language names can also spell trouble to the uninitiated, with the most prominent being Portlaoise. Despite all the controversy over how it is pronounced on RTÉ, its pronunciation on the national radio and television station is perfectly correct if it is regarded as the Irish language version of the name. Pat Murphy, Dublin.
QUESTION What is the strangest Death Row meal request?
NO MATTER how bad a life they have led, every prisoner on Death Row famously gets to choose their last meal before execution. Because we can be dealing with pretty unhinged individuals, it is perhaps not surprising that there are strange choices.
In 1984, Velma Barfield, 52, a grandmother and serial arsenic poisoner from North Carolina, was the first woman to die by lethal injection. She chose Cheez Doodles, similar to Cheesy Wotsits, and a Coke for her last meal.
In 1963, Victor Feguer, a drifter convicted of murdering a young doctor in Dubuque, Iowa, asked for a single olive.
Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma Bomber, consumed two pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream before his execution by lethal injection in 2001.
Thomas J Grasso, a thief executed in 1995 for strangling a woman of 87 with Christmas tree lights, chose a bowl of SpaghettiOs (tinned pasta) served at room temperature.
Robert Alton Harris, executed at San Quentin in 1992 after a string of crimes in California, including theft, burglary, kidnap and the murder of two teenage boys, had 21 pieces of KFC chicken, two Tombstone pizzas, jellybeans, ice cream and six bottles of Pepsi.
Strangest of all was James Edward Smith, who murdered a man while committing a robbery in the International Trade Centre in Houston, Texas. In 1990, he asked for some dirt in order to perform a Voodoo ritual. This was refused and he was given a cup of yogurt instead. Ian Foulds, Ludlow, Shropshire.
IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Irish Daily Mail, Embassy House, Herbert Park Lane, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. You can also fax them to 0044 1952 510906 or you can email them to charles.legge@dailymail.ie. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.