Grand Jeu ~ King of Diamonds

It has been a busy time and regrettably, I haven’t been here much – apologies! But the work with the Jeu goes on – there’s no end to all this Grand Jeu! The depth and complexity, and the fact that it’s been so neglected in so many ways, make for a LOT of work, but it’s coming along, bit by bit.

The LWB says “Cadmus offeres a vase to Mercury”, but:

“Mercury” is obviously female
“Mercury” has no winged feet
“Mercury” has no caduceus, she has a shield and a spear – a warrior queen type

And – we have to find someone like this, a patroness to Cadmus. The following is from
about.com:
Since Cadmus had lost all his men to the dragon, he needed more. Athena advised Cadmus to sow half the teeth of the dragon if he wanted companions. He planted half the teeth and gave the rest to the goddess. From the spot where Cadmus had planted each tooth a fully armed man sprang up, immediately. The new warriors posed a clear danger to Cadmus, so, on the further advice of Athena, he threw stones among the warriors. Each man who was hit thought one of the other sown men (sparti) had hit him, so they started killing one another. Only five of the sparti survived, albeit wounded: Echion, Udaeus, Chthonius, Hyperenor and Pelorus.
The remaining teeth, which Cadmus had given to Athena, she saved for Jason.

So – presumably those are the dragon’s teeth in the vase? (Thanks yet again to Peter – for that, for pointing out that she is more often than not syncretised with Minerva, and for doing the serious digging here.)

Athena depicted on a coin of Attalus I, ruler of Pergamon —c. 200 BC.

Similar, no? 😉

Grand Jeu Flowers

This post is a work in progress. Meanings and more translations will be added as time goes by, things will be tweaked, but in the meantime I at least wanted to get something up here to help identify the flowers!

It can be very difficult to find any information at all about the flowers on this deck, and when you finally do, well, it’s usually bogus. Many sources list only one flower per card…

…but as you can see, there is more than one. Victorian flower language is a study in itself, but here is my favorite link for looking some of the meanings up.

And here is the list. I’ve left some of the French names for now, rather than give a bad translation. In time I hope to have all of them done.

King of Clubs – Plumbago, basil, poppy
Queen of Clubs – Organes sexuels, honeysuckle, rose of four seasons
Jack of Clubs – colorful carnation, anagallis, menispermum
10 of Clubs – Bromelia, rassella, tobacco
9 of Clubs – Anthoseros, hellebore, red clover
8 of Clubs – Organes sexuels
7 of Clubs – Castanea, salix, China rose
6 of Clubs – Taxus, rhus, geranium
5 of Clubs – Organes sexuels – Gallium, tilia
4 of Clubs – Red Wallflower, mesembryanthemum, theobroma
3 of Clubs – White lilacs, willow, saponaria
2 of Clubs – Wheat, melia, statice
Ace of Clubs – Tremella, marguerite, bell

King of Hearts – Lily of the valley, marshmallow, cherry leaves and fruits
Queen of Hearts – Cistus, papaver, lilas varin
Jack of Hearts – Fuchsia, lemna, ryegrass
10 of Hearts – Violet, seringat, rose of May
9 of Hearts – Lilas, arum lily, immortal
8 of Hearts – Willow daphné, coltha bucida
7 of Hearts – Dahlia, belle-de-jour, snowdrop
6 of Hearts – Ivy wrapping a lily without flowers, Rose of France, flowery sage
5 of Hearts – Veratrum, lichen, rumex
4 of Hearts – Cartanus défleuri, potamogeton, scirpus effeuillé
3 of Hearts – Elder, ciperus, laurel
2 of Hearts – Fucus,double violets, mixed hyacinthe
Ace of Hearts – Buxus, musa, button of half-opened pink

King of Diamonds – Orange tree flowers and fruits, tea rose, larkspur
Queen of Diamonds – Balota, geranium, jonquil
Jack of Diamonds – Dodartia, balsam, cobaea
10 of Diamonds – Barega, red carnation, tulip
9 of Diamonds – Carthamus, convolvulus, juniper
8 of Diamonds – Chrysanthemum, gladiolus, silphium
7 of Diamonds – Hypericum, cardiospermum, colorful hellebore
6 of Diamonds – Rhododendron, strawberries and heather leaves
5 of Diamonds – Ochre clover, wallflower, paronichia
4 of Diamonds – Urtica, brionia, cercis
3 of Diamonds – Ivy embracing the thorn, seringat, rosemary
2 of Diamonds – Gentian, yellow violet, buttercup
Ace of Diamonds – Reed, lythrum, rose unique

King of Spades – Tulip, eliam, canna
Queen of Spades – Ruscus, polypodium, locust tree
Jack of Spades – Véronique, wallflower, periwinkle
10 of Spades – Saxifrage, flowers and fruits, berberis, garcinia
9 of Spades – Epilobium ; rose à cent feuilles, cornflower
8 of Spades – Orchis, taraspic, cardanus
7 of Spades – Oat, pione, rose bâtarde.
6 of Spades – Cotha, papaver, juniper
5 of Spades – Yellow carnation, raspberry, arum lily
4 of Spades – Sodum, sunflower, gossipium
3 of Spades – Cypress, box tree, laurel
2 of Spades – Sempervivum, ribes, melostoma
Ace of Spades – Paronichia, lycopodium, sweet pea

Source: cartomancien.com

Grand Jeu Constellations

The constellations on this deck can be very confusing and there is a dearth of good information – many writers ignore them completely! Different sources will assign different constellations to the cards. Some of them might assign several to the same card! I can’t guarantee the accuracy of these, but they do look straightforward and user-friendly. They are from Le Livre du Grand Jeu de Mlle Lenormand by Jean Didier:

A of Clubs: Ophiucus
2 of Clubs: Altair
3 of Clubs: Les Hydrades
4 of Clubs: Cerbere
5 of Clubs:La Harpe et Georges
6 of Clubs: Arcturus
7 of Clubs: Orion
8 of Clubs: La Grande Ourse
9 of Clubs: Hercule
10 of Clubs: La Licorne
J of Clubs: Le Cheval
Q of Clubs: Les Pleiades
K of Clubs: La Gloire de Frederic*

A of Diamonds: Le Telescope
2 of Diamonds: Le Poissons
3 of Diamonds: Pollux
4 of Diamonds: Le Cygne
5 of Diamonds: Le Cameleon
6 of Diamonds: La Meduse (or possibly Medusa?)
7 of Diamonds: Le Vautour
8 of Diamonds: L’Abeille**
9 of Diamonds: Le Dauphin
10 of Diamonds: Le Petit Lion
J of Diamonds: Le Mat du Navire
Q of Diamonds: Le Dragon
K of Diamonds: Le Poisson Volant

A of Spades: Le Clocher
2 of Spades: Castor
3 of Spades: Le Petit Chien
4 of Spades: Le Poisson Austral
5 of Spades: La Dorade
6 of Spades: Le Serpent
7 of Spades: La Baleine
8 of Spades: Algol
9 of Spades: Alpha du Belier
10 of Spades: Le Renard
J of Spades: Persee
Q of Spades: La Croix du Sud
K of Spades: Ardens ou la Porte des Hommes

A of Hearts: La Voie Lactee
2 of Hearts: Le Bouvier
3 of Hearts: Pegase
4 of Hearts: Le Cygne
5 of Hearts: Le Lion
6 of Hearts: Le Belier
7 of Hearts: Le Sextant
8 of Hearts: Aldebaran
9 of Hearts: Regulus
10 of Hearts: La Coupe
J of Hearts: La Couronne Boreale
Q of Hearts: La Chevelure de Berenice
K of Hearts: Le Triangle

*Frederick’s Glory is an obsolete constellation by Lacerta.

** L’Abeille translates to “Bee”, but the constellation is now called Musca, the Southern Fly. They are one and the same.

And merci beaucoup to Chanah for helping with all this! 😀
And for this additional information:
Richard Hinckley Allen: Star Names — Their Lore and Meaning

Grand Jeu Shortcuts

Okay, we’ve seen that this deck can be like casting a horoscope, and if you’re doing an in-depth reading, you’ll want pen, paper and reference materials. Very good for important matters! But do you really want to do all that when you just want to know something minor, like whether the repair man is going to show up today, or something along those lines? Do you really need the geomancy, flower language, and everything else? Sometimes we not only don’t have time to do all that, it would be crazy to do all that! Oftentimes we just want a quick answer.

In these cases, you would just read the illustrations, and not worry about the other things on the card. The illustrations carry the basic message. Once you’ve made yourself familiar with them, you don’t even have to remember the names of the all characters on the cards. Just familiarise yourself with what’s going on in the pictures. You can lay them out – POP! POP! POP! – and get your answer, just like with the simple decks.

The categories I talked about in my last post are also very good for getting information at a glance. Categories can be confusing, though, not only if you’re just learning, but also if you haven’t used the deck for awhile and your mind has become something less than a well-oiled machine where this deck is concerned.

Here is Capricorn, for instance:

But the 2 of Diamonds also shows a goat, and its category is The Unexpected:

Some of the Unexpected cards look like they could be Trojan War cards, and vice versa. There’s a potential for confusion here. So I’m going to give you a very simple shortcut: mark your cards! Normally I wouldn’t recommend that, but it’s very practical in this case, and aesthetically it actually adds to the mystique of the deck, IMHO. It doesn’t make you any less of a reader – Mlle. Lenormand herself is said to have marked her cards with strange ciphers. Just a little mark in a spot where it won’t look ugly. Keep it tiny and neat, and do it on the bottom so that you can see it when you do those spreads with just the small illustrations showing.You can use a tiny dab of paint or colored nail polish if you’re into color coding – gold for the Golden Fleece, red for the Trojan War, etc., or you can just use letters. I used Z for Zodiac, B for Business, T for Trojan War, M for Marriage, and left the cards from the Unexpected category blank, since there’s so many of them. You can see a few here:

Happy reading! 😀

Thinking about learning the Lennies?

There’s a lot of advantages to using this system. It gives the predictive information people are looking for. Most clients want to know what will happen, or what is happening behind the scenes, and the Lenormand is perfect for these kinds of questions. If you learn the Lenormand, other oracle decks like the Sibilla and the Kipperkarten will come to you naturally. It helps you string meanings together and focus on combined meanings, even your Tarot readings will improve considerably because of it!

The first thing you’ll want to do is choose a deck. Take your time looking at images online and decide what’s right for you. I’d recommend a deck with playing card insets, since they give you more information, but plain images are good, too. Some decks have little poems on them, most people find the poems distracting and you really don’t need them. All they do is lock you into one interpretation if you pay any attention to them..

I love the old Dondorf pattern. I have a battered LS French Cartomancy (I don’t know why they call it French, it’s German…) that I usually carry with me. Like most LS copies, they’ve simply scanned an old deck, so it’s pre-faded and pre-yellowed, it looks very soft and old. Here are a few images:

There are several drawbacks to this deck, though. For one thing, it’s slightly larger than the standard Lenormand. I don’t know if the deck alone is available any more, you might have to buy it in a set with a book that is by all accounts useless and horrible.

There is a another Dondorf available, the Königsfurt-Verlag Lenormandkarten Dondorf mit Kartenabbildungen available at Esoterik Shopping. It’s standard Lenormand size, they’ve changed the images for the playing card insets, and the backs are a beautiful dark blue, with a gorgeous flower and serpent design.

I keep this deck for at-home readings, so it doesn’t get so much wear and tear. The card stock isn’t that strong, unfortunately. But a big advantage of this deck is that they’ve flipped The Lady. In the standard Dondorf pattern, the Lady and the Gent face the same way, but with this deck they can look at each other…or turn their backs on one another. That can be important in a reading!!

Here are the French Cartomancy Lady and the Königsfurt Lady, respectively:

I normally don’t like changes to old things, but this deck was obviously tweaked by someone who actually understands the Lennies. The reasoning behind the changes is sound, and the resulting deck is perfect.

The Piatnik is also a very beautiful Lenormand, with that great Piatnik quality cardstock and absolutely stunning art, much of it depicting the Austrian countryside:

The Blue Owl is a standard, it’s got to be the most-loved Lenormand in print:

And if you want to break out of the conventional, there’s nothing like the Bärtschi Lenormand!

There are others available, these are just recommendations. Happy hunting!

Now, how to learn? Do you buy a book? Well, no, if you only speak english. I learned without books, because when I started, there just weren’t any in english. I learned the rudiments online. Look for communities where the focus is study, not collecting!

As of this posting, there still aren’t any good Lenormand books in english. There’s the previously mentioned thing that comes with the LS French Cartomancy. I seriously think they just pulled random meanings from some other book for that one, it has absolutely nothing to do with Lenormand.

Mario dos Ventos Game of Destiny is probably the best of the lot. It’s a vast improvement on Sylvie Steinbach’s Secrets of the Lenormand Oracle. That one uses meanings that aren’t compatible with the usual systems of reading. It just confuses people, they look at spreads and don’t know whether to go with the regular meanings or Sylvie’s meanings. She calls herself a “life coach” and her meanings are skewed towards people who aren’t living in the real world…and blow money on things like a “life coach”. The book is self-published and since it’s not very good, she tends to accuse people who criticise of “defamation” in order to keep the propaganda machine running. I’m told that she recently tried to do this to a small forum with no success. (Ms. Steinbach, if you are reading this, in order to successfully sue someone for defamation you have to be able to show that the claim is unambiguously false, that the writer knew it was false, and be able to conclusively show that the falsehood led to loss in business. People who bring up defamation are just trying to threaten people into being quiet with the bluff of legal action. You don’t own the internet. Get a life.)

So if books are not a good option, what to do? Courses! 😀 The Britta course is good for a beginner, and the Treppner course is arguably the best resource available. You can’t go wrong with Iris Treppner! 😀

I’m starting to see interactive software popping up, but people are telling me that these programs bear more than a passing resemblance to the some of sources listed above. Not very ethical, IMHO.

And of course, there are blogs! Some of them are excellent, I especially like Chanah’s blog, and she’s been nice enough to put up a comprehensive list of meanings to get you started or enhance what you know already.

I hope this helps! Enjoy!