Help for old french card. Fish & Clog.

Rosanne

From about 1870's on there was a mania for thematic cards that could be swapped- the usually came in sets of 35. These were not the cigarette/pipe/hotel cards. They had meanings- like a code and you could send them to your friends or swap them. I think these cards might belong to this group rather than Fortune telling cards. Here is one from Sentimental Conversations. In England they were called Catchpenny cards. They all followed a theme.
http://literaturecompass.files.wordpress.com/2006/11/conversation-card1.JPG?w=450

Sometimes they had numbers at the top- sometimes not.

~Rosanne
 

Rosanne

http://boardgames.about.com/library/news/bln-090202-nyc-exhibit.htm

I have listed this site because on the page there are two items of interest.
Scroll down and you will see there is a Napoleon Thematic game. On the board there are sites that you land on, by dice throws and you get the corresponding number card and you have to make up a conversation about that card, before you move on.
These games were very popular. So I shot up to our Colonial museum and had a look (I had given some Tobacco cards there) and there it was this American Napoleon Game!- just like this site has. The cards looked very LeNormand and were like a combination of those and Les Personages Napoleoniens Tarot. There are 60 cards and they are number top right hand corner. No fish and Clog though. Napoleon sick in bed, several priests,a man going to shoot himself, a couple with a baby, a man selling little Napoleons, Napoleon as emperor and Josephine, people sitting in conversation, dogs and cats and elaborately dressed Horse etc
It occurred to me these thematic board games from France (this was in English) may have been the origin of Sibilla decks. The card that I posted in my post above, was from a French conversation game 1750. It looks remarkably like card 30 in the unknown cards we are talking about.

Below this Napoleon game is a Black Cat Fortune Telling game with hearts and Spades showing......seems like these games were very popular.

It has always been my understanding that LeNormand came from a ordinary card deck French suited....maybe not.
~Rosanne
 

Debra

All those cards seem to shriek out "common sayings"! I searched "proverbs" for the fish and shoe and got nowhere. Maybe a native speaker would know.

That Angel with #45--he's disturbingly old in the face. I wondered if the numbers predicted the length of one's life. Rosanne's is much better. Why is he so old and with such an obvious beard?

The first card also has a 7 on it.

What a mystery.
 

Bernice

Rosanne: The card that I posted in my post above, was from a French conversation game 1750. It looks remarkably like card 30 in the unknown cards we are talking about.
Yes, I can see the similarity now. But when I first saw this card (30) I thought they had fallen out :laugh: because they sit with their backs to each other.

I love the cow/ox whatever it is (22), so richly dressed up and topped with a feathered hat.

Debra: All those cards seem to shriek out "common sayings"...
I agree. Something that was commonly known, like Huck said here,
Huck:Perhaps it's reminds a proverb or a custom? Somewhere I've read something of "Bruggegeld" (Bridge-money), that was collected with a wooden shoe ... there are these moving bridges, which let the ships through. Somebody must be on the ship, another must move the bridge. A fisher, who returns back with fish, wouldn't pay with money, but with fish for the service ... perhaps something like this.


Do any of us know of an Austrian/Germanic/French person who might have knowledge of old 'local' sayings &/or proverbs? I think they might enjoy deciphering these cards :)


Bee :)
 

conversus

What I find so fascinating about this discussion is that "we" are so stymied by an image that was commonplace only 200-300 years ago. No wonder we are confounded by images that are far older. . .

CED
 

Huck

Bernice said:
I love the cow/ox whatever it is (22), so richly dressed up and topped with a feathered hat.

That's likely a socalled "Pfingstochse" ... there is a saying "gekleidet wie ein Pfingstochse", "clothed like a pentecost ox". In the time of Pfingsten the cows and bulls were released from their "winter prison" and made a procession to their summer place.

Rosanne said:
It occurred to me these thematic board games from France (this was in English) may have been the origin of Sibilla decks.

Indeed there is some evidence, that at least one fortune telling deck developed from an earlier German board (?) game, at least a game.

In think, I have this from Dummett, Depaulis and Decker ... which I haven't at hand. I think this was from a research of Hoffmann.
 

Rosanne

I think I have received a understanding of the clog and fish!

The clog was a symbol of 'old France' and the fish (if a Cod) became the symbol of the 'new France'.This was because meat was forbidden for almost half the days of the year, and those lean days eventually became salt cod days. Cod became a religious crusader for Christian observance. The French had found the Land of Cod up by Canada, and had kept the story quiet.
I am sure there will be a saying about old clogs and salt Cod- but I have not found it as yet :laugh:


Now Huck's version of the Pentecost Beef is quite appropriate an old saying relates to that.
"Ce n'est pas la vache qui crie le plus fort qui donne le plus de lait."
which means literally, It is not the cow which shouts most extremely which gives most milk.
This is from the dictionary of Archaic Proverbs and Sayings.
I think we would say something like "All show and no Punch"

Now I can stop badgering people to look at the Fish and Clog card :p

~Rosanne
 

Rosanne

http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/_fu...ladifference/images/760/22.K.3-77(detail).jpg

Here is Hogarth's representation of the malnourished French soldier, who frequents inns dedicated to the symbol of French slavery and poverty: the wooden shoe (sabot). Through the window is visible the dry bones of a small joint of beef. A monk and soldiers prepare to invade Britain with torture equipment, whilst cooking up a last meal of frogs. The writing on the flag on the right suggests that the French are eager to enjoy the abundance of food and drink across the Channel.

It would seem that Old Poor France as Clog was more commonly known, than is realised now.
 

Rosanne

Some trivia.....

Dans le doris les hommes s'en vont
Pour pécher toute la journée
Et quand il est plein de poisson
Faut encore le décharger
Hale dessus, c'est de la morue
Hale dedans, c'est du flétan

The men go down into the dories
To fish all day long
And when it is full of fish
We still have to unload
On the outside it's cod
On the inside it's halibut .....

This is a cod sailors song from the annals of Mariner's songs pre 20th century.Of course pre-2oth.....who has heard of Mariners singing on an oil tanker?
Meaning the work is hard unloading because Halibut is wide and heavy....and one of the nicknames of Napoleon Bonaparte was Fletan... couldn't really call him the Cod-piece now could they? One of the Halibut species is named after him. I read somewhere that Josephine was a La Morue- how rude and too rude for here :eek:

Here is a poem from the poor Newfoundlanders from whom the French stole their fish....
O Squander not they grief,
whose tears command to weep upon our Cod Newfoundland;
The plenteous pickle shall preserve the fish,
And Europe taste thy sorrows in a dish.

~Rosanne
 

Bernice

Huck and Rosanne, what wonderful finds! (Sherlock Holmes, go eat your hat!).

Fish & Clog:..... Fish surrmounts the clog, so a card of Good Fortune?
The fish looks like a Cod to me, although I'm not a fisherman. So, Clog = old impoverished France, Fish = new well-fed (on fish) France. This is interesting, "Cod became a religious crusader for Christian observance.". Would it be related to the custom of catholics eating fish on fridays?

Love the trivia :)

Cow/Ox:..........She is so richly dressed up, perhaps a card of deception/illusion?
The Pentecost cow. "there is a saying "gekleidet wie ein Pfingstochse", "clothed like a pentecost ox"", "It is not the cow which shouts most extremely which gives most milk".

At some point it may be possible to arrive at a likely approximate date for this deck :)


Bee :)