Salamanders, butterflies, etc

Yelell

I searched the forum but couldn't find it.

The court cards of the different suits have a common thread: The wands have salamanders, lions, or both. The cups have fish. The swords have butterflies - I haven't found one on the page but I guess it's there somewhere. What do the pentacle court cards have?
 

Abrac

There's a rabbit in the lower right-hand of the Queen of Pentacles. I think it might be the lone representative for Earth. The elemental associated with earth is the gnome. They live on the forest floor and underground. Rabbits likewise inhabit forest floors and live underground in burrows.

The images Pamela used to represent the elemental spirits don't all look like you would expect. The salamanders are the only ones that resemble their description from lore. Fish aren't undines, butterflies aren't sylphs, and a rabbit isn't a gnome; but as symbols they work.
 

Richard

There are some figures on the throne of the Queen of Pentacles that could be gnomes. (Not all depictions of gnomes have those conical garden gnome hats. I even have a garden gnome which is bare headed.)
 

Yelell

The RWS may have had a different feel if a family of kitchy garden gnomes HAD appeared!

The thing gnomes, undines and sylphs have in common that salamanders don't is a human-like appearance, which may not have meshed with the existing "Christian" human-like imagery? Searching these as keywords I came across this site http://naturalmagickshop.com/articles/Air-Fire-Water-Earth-Spirit.html listing bull as Kerub and elsewhere "SHOR: (Hebrew meaning: bull) Shor is the Kerub of Earth".

The bull appears on the throne of King of pents, and maybe the Queen (although that looks more like a ram to me.) I saw a small face as well on the throne of the Queen of pents, but cherubs also appear on the Queens of cups and swords. The Queen of wands seems more cat obsessed.

No butterflies, but there are birds on the Page of swords, like the Queen, Knight and King. Still haven't seen anything at all on the Page and Knight of pents yet.
 

Abrac

LRichard, I believe you're right. It does look like some little critters on her throne. The one in this picture especially looks gnomish. It has a floppy, cone-shaped hat falling down in its face and the right arm is resting on her throne.

Gnome

Yelell, I'm pretty sure it's a goat on the arm of her throne. In the pic you can see its "goatee." :)

Goat
 

Richard

.....The bull appears on the throne of King of pents, and maybe the Queen (although that looks more like a ram to me.) I saw a small face as well on the throne of the Queen of pents, but cherubs also appear on the Queens of cups and swords. The Queen of wands seems more cat obsessed......

The King of Pents bull is Taurus (fixed earth). The Queen of Pents "ram" is a goat, for Capricorn (cardinal earth).
 

Yelell

Thank you. I got out my universal waite and the goat and his beard especially are quite obvious now. It's not my favorite deck ( and I don't know if it "counts" as a RWS), but some details do stand out much more clearly.
 

Freyja of V

I know it's obvious but...
There is also fruit on the King and Queens thrones. On the Q's, there are pears and Oranges? (not sure about that round ones) and leaves. And on the K's it looks like maybe there fruit next to his head on our left, it's hard to tell. :confused:But I think there are bunches of grapes behind and around the bulls heads. It's hard to make that out too. But because he is sitting in a vineyard or in the middle of a grape vine, it would fit.

The symbolism in the images fascinate me.:bugeyed: I have done so much research on traditional meaning of symbols and it really has helped with attainging the card meanings.:thumbsup:
 

Abheda

King of Pentacles Badger

That thing the King of Pentacles is stepping on...

I've heard people say it was different things (most commonly, a helmet), but I feel quite certain that it is a badger. The badger is a symbol of greed, so i think it makes sense. It reminds me of the Hindu statues of the dancing Shiva-Nataraja, stamping out the demon on ignorance beneath his foot.

http://www.wildlifeartiststudio.com/badger15.JPG
 

Freyja of V

That thing the King of Pentacles is stepping on...

I've heard people say it was different things (most commonly, a helmet), but I feel quite certain that it is a badger. The badger is a symbol of greed, so i think it makes sense. It reminds me of the Hindu statues of the dancing Shiva-Nataraja, stamping out the demon on ignorance beneath his foot.

http://www.wildlifeartiststudio.com/badger15.JPG

I cannot believe I forgot about that creature.:lightbulb In my opinion, I think it is an armadillo. Before I got the giant RWS, I couldn't tell what that was. But, it seems to have a shell. At first I thought it could be a crocodile, but the head wasn't the right shape and a crocodile wouldn't be in an earth suit. But now I'm pretty certain it's an armadillo and I have found others on the internet that agree. However, I/We could be wrong. Unfortunately, Waite doesn't say in his Pictorial Key. So it's up to us to decide. So we are all right.

These are the traditional meanings I could find:

Armadillos love to dig and burrow with their sharp, little claws. This speaks to us symbolically about searching, discovering, and getting to the "root" of the matter.
(from whats-your-sign.com) And...

Also I found:

This creature knows that he is in charge of what he chooses to experience in life. If an Armadillo comes across a situation he doesn't want to be a part of, he just curls up into a ball, using shields to define clear boundaries.
(at http://spiritsymbols.blogspot.com/2012/09/armadillo.html)

I think the 2nd applies because as King he is self-disciplined and in control. But he can be stubborn, so I can see him curling up and hiding.

Again, the symbolism is amazing!!