Clouds, rider and ship

[Scandinavianhermit]

I know a little about tarot, but Petit Lenormand/Spiel der Hoffnung is quite a different world to me. I haven't bought any Lenormand/Hoffnung deck yet, so I need some advice.

 

Oracle decks of this type doesn't seem to follow any standard regarding the direction the Rider and the Ship moves, nor regarding on which side the Clouds are darker. From what I've gathered, persons proficient in "the Lenormand method" often seem to have quite firm positions on how these three cards ought to look. Which decks follow the "ideal" Lenormand design of these three cards? I don't want to buy a divergent Lenormand design by mistake, because I don't want to muddle my future use of "traditional" "Lenormand methods".

 

 

[Raggydoll]

I only own one lenormand deck, but I think it’s fair to say that it’s as traditional as they come. Mine is an antique Danish dondorf, and it came with a Danish translation of the so called PL sheet. This sheet is the oldest lenormand instruction that there is. The verses on the cards are also based on this sheet. Since you’re Scandinavian, I’ll show you what they look like (I’m guessing you understand Danish to some extent 😊)

 

 

A few pages of the guidebook. This is in public domain so no copyright issues with sharing it 

 

 

I’d say that any of the old Dondorfs are a safe bet. You can find an English translation of the PL sheet in the appendix of Andy B s book (or you can google the ‘Philippe Lenormand Sheet’ for other versions) 

There is also their website that is extremely informative and reliable

I don’t really have any experience with other decks but I have heard that the other ones with verses on them are not as reliable, because their verses are not based on the PL sheet. So maybe get one without verses in that case. I’m sure that others, way more experienced people, will soon chime in. (I’m really more into historical tarot, antique playing cards and other old fortune telling decks, I don’t read lenormand much )
 

Best of luck ! 

[Scandinavianhermit]

12 minutes ago, Raggydoll said:

Since you’re Scandinavian, I’ll show you what they look like (I’m guessing you understand Danish to some extent 😊)

Yes, reading written Danish is certainly not any problem. I have at least two or three Danish books in my bookshelf. It is spoken Danish (outside of Bornholm) which is difficult. If Danes outside of Bornholm pronounced their own words more similarly to how Norwegian is pronounced, I would understand spoken Danish. Living in the south of Sweden, I find east-Norwegian (think Hamar!) not that dissimilar to Wermlandic or Dalslandic, and when I've heard Trøndersk spoken it was certainly easy to understand, but I think the Bergen dialect has a certain reputation ...

 

If you live up north, btw, I hope you'll take care today and the next few days. The weather report from up there sounds quite extreme. Though I find anything between zero and minus 10° refreshing and invigorating (bringing back lovely childhood memories), anything under minus 15° is extreme from my point of view, but minus 35°? 😱 REALLY?

 

This is fascinating! I suppose there exist Dondorf decks with playingcard inserts? If I've understood what Lenormand is all about correctly, court card inserts may indicate persons?

 

I'm very grateful.

 

I will also take a detailed look at what's available from Königsfurt Urania. Delivery within the EU is certainly quicker.

 

[Raggydoll]

24 minutes ago, Scandinavianhermit said:

Yes, reading written Danish is certainly not any problem. I have at least two or three Danish books in my bookshelf. It is spoken Danish (outside of Bornholm) which is difficult. If Danes outside of Bornholm pronounced their own words more similarly to how Norwegian is pronounced, I would understand spoken Danish. Living in the south of Sweden, I find east-Norwegian (think Hamar!) not that dissimilar to Wermlandic or Dalslandic, and when I've heard Trøndersk spoken it was certainly easy to understand, but I think the Bergen dialect has a certain reputation ...

 

If you live up north, btw, I hope you'll take care today and the next few days. The weather report from up there sounds quite extreme. Though I find anything between zero and minus 10° refreshing and invigorating (bringing back lovely childhood memories), anything under minus 15° is extreme from my point of view, but minus 35°? 😱 REALLY?

 

This is fascinating! I suppose there exist Dondorf decks with playingcard inserts? If I've understood what Lenormand is all about correctly, court card inserts may indicate persons?

 

I'm very grateful.

 

I will also take a detailed look at what's available from Königsfurt Urania. Delivery within the EU is certainly quicker.

 

I so know what you mean about written Danish vs spoken Danish 😂 I can read it just fine, but they do need to talk very slowly for me to keep up. I definitely find Norwegian accents easier!
 

I do live up north and the temperature is dropping fast. I had planned on walking to the grocery store today, but then I saw the weather report on my phone which said -30 so I’m reconsidering this 😅 On rare occasions, I have experienced temperatures below - 40. That’s… cold ! 😆

 

To get back on topic 😁, yes there exist dondorf decks with playing card inserts! And yes, cards with courts on them can represent people, Andy talks about that in the book and on the site I linked earlier!
 

I would definitely also try to buy within EU, and I think you’ll be able to find a nice lenormand if you do some searching.
 

If you’re a little bit tech savvy there is also the option of reprinting an historical deck. I’ve done this many times. Museums like the British museum or the French Gallica all have pictures of historical decks in their online collections and you are allowed to use them for non commercial purposes. (I’ve also had some luck with Nordiska museet, they were very helpful and even sent me more pics via email for free).

 

So basically I adjust the photos into a suitable format and then have them printed through Printerstudio. It’s a print-on-demand site which ships from Germany for all Europeans, so no custom charges. It’s an option worth looking into. This means that you can print decks that aren’t even available on the market and you get to pick cardstock (my favorite is linen). The only downside is that you would have to use one of the standard formats (like tarot, bridge, poker, skat, mini etc) and you can’t get pointy corners. But still, it’s a great option. And it typically costs much less than an independently published restoration. 

[Scandinavianhermit]

That's very informative, @Raggydoll. Thank you! An entire unknown world is opening up before me. 

[DanielJUK]

There is a list of decks ideal for beginners with traditional card imagery in our FAQ -

 

[Scandinavianhermit]

7 hours ago, DanielJUK said:

There is a list of decks ideal for beginners with traditional card imagery in our FAQ -

Thank you. Let me rephrase my question.

 

Please let me know the arguments pro et contra decks in which the Woman, the Man, the Rider and the Ship face in particular directions, and likewise the exact colouring of the Clouds. There seem to be all sorts of variation of these choices. I've never read any systematical treatment of this. I have just stumbled randomly upon very partisan opinions about "the wrong direction" and "the correct direction", and this has kept me away from choosing a Lenormand deck, for now, worrying about buying a "wrong" Lenormand.

[joy]

6 hours ago, Scandinavianhermit said:

Thank you. Let me rephrase my question.

 

Please let me know the arguments pro et contra decks in which the Woman, the Man, the Rider and the Ship face in particular directions, and likewise the exact colouring of the Clouds. There seem to be all sorts of variation of these choices. I've never read any systematical treatment of this. I have just stumbled randomly upon very partisan opinions about "the wrong direction" and "the correct direction", and this has kept me away from choosing a Lenormand deck, for now, worrying about buying a "wrong" Lenormand.

I think you are overthinking it a bit and probably got confused by the different authors of Lenormand books and deck creators. The question you need to ask yourself is, do you want to read traditional? If the answer to this is yes, then look at the original file Here

In that file the only card of the 3 that you mention talks of the image are the clouds. Scythe is danger and the surrounding cards will show what is in danger. 

 

Ship not sure why you choose this for the direction. The original meaning of ship is trade, commerce. I would not pay attention to where it goes.

 

Lady and Gentleman. Let us assume the lady is looking to the right and the gentleman to the left. That would mean if you have for example: the gentleman - ring - lady: they would turn their backs to the ring. Right? In my opinion that is not how Lenormand works. BUT that is my opinion.
Or you have 3 columns: Past - Present - Future. The Lady is in the 2nd colum and therefore turning her back to the future? But if the Gentleman is in that same position he looks into the future? Sounds wrong, does it not?
 

If you want to learn Lenormand the traditional way then stick to teachers like Andy Boroveshengra: Lenormand 36 cards is his book or Björn Meuris and his 3 volumes. Best is really to stick to one teacher and ignore everyone else until you are confident.
 

You can really use any deck but again, if you want to read the traditional way, you just have to blend out certain things. 
Hope I have helped and not confused you more

[DanielJUK]

You might find this old thread helpful @Scandinavianhermit -

 

The second post entitled "guest" is AndyB and in some of the further replies.

I think that there isn't a 100% agreed system to the directions, it's the card art (please someone correct me if that is wrong). I always read the card art like other cartomancy and Tarot, I look at patterns and directions. Each card art is different, but it's not the most important part of a reading, it gives you clues 🙂 .

[Scandinavianhermit]

Thank you, @DanielJUK! Both your remarks, @joy's remarks and that entire thread were illuminating. I think I begin with the Grand Tableau Lenormand deck, then (because it is uncluttered), and switch to something else, when I've learned the basics and know which "advanced" edition I ought to switch to. The equivalents to Acorns, Bells and Leaves do not come automatically for me, so in the future I will probably seek for a Lenormand deck that includes German suite marks, but for now I will stay put with Grand Tableau Lenormand.

[Scandinavianhermit]

On 1/2/2024 at 7:32 AM, Raggydoll said:

 

 

I believe your deck is one iteration of the Dondorf, isn't it? Dondorf feels almost what I'm looking for.

 

It seems like the famous Blue Owl (seemingly propagated by a lot of Lenormand users) is a product of AGM Urania in Kiel, not far from Denmark, and not far from the original cradle of the English. I took a look at the Blue Owl, but there was some je ne sais quoi quality about it, that felt slightly off to me.

 

When I randomly stumbled upon the Grand Tableau Lenormand I fell in love: It seems so serene and uncluttered, with the emblems in focus, without being austere. I wasn't certain about the origin of Grand Tableau Lenormand earlier tonight, but I think I have pieced together information from this and other websites, and it seems like Grand Tableau Lenormand is a reproduction of a Lenormand edition printed by Piatnik (Vienna) in the past (perhaps 1890s?), but replaced by a slightly more modern "steamboat" Piatnik Lenormand version in the mid-20th century.

 

Funny how Piatnik pop up in my life on and off. When I played cardgames in my childhood, we generally used the Öberg deck from Eskilstuna (now absorbed by Cartamundi), but when I was a teenager I found a few more 'posh' decks from Piatnik in a local bookstore and fell in love with them. Back then, tarot decks were unavailable in convenience stores and ordinary bookstores, and only Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmœ had metaphysical bookstores ran by early enthusiasts. I bought my two initial tarot decks (1JJ Swiss and the US Games version of RWCS, because the Grimaud Marseilles had switched to an unpleasant colour scheme in the early 1970s, and I didn't reconcile with the Marseilles tradition until Yoav ben Dov released his CBD Tarot more recently). Then came the 1990s, and suddenly every little milltown and municipality sprouted a local metaphysical bookstore (but killed off by the financial crisis of 2008, the rise of webshops and the Covid epidemic 2020-22). It's strange how things have changed in such a relatively short time span.

 

I read about how temperature dropped to minus 43.5° in your climes: Take care! It only dropped to minus 11° down here in the south, and we have a pleasant minus 5° now.

[Scandinavianhermit]

Sorry, @Raggydoll. i intended to say, that I bought my initial tarot decks in Gothenburg, back in the 1980s. 

[Raggydoll]

40 minutes ago, Scandinavianhermit said:

Sorry, @Raggydoll. i intended to say, that I bought my initial tarot decks in Gothenburg, back in the 1980s. 

Ooh, which one’s did you get? I can imagine that the selection of decks in the big cities must have been much greater than what we had. It was really difficult to source any decks when I first started out (I am 40, and I began reading in the 90s) 

[Scandinavianhermit]

4 minutes ago, Raggydoll said:

I can imagine that the selection of decks in the big cities must have been much greater than what we had. It was really difficult to source any decks when I first started out (I am 40, and I began reading in the 90s) 

It was the 1980s, and the Näckrosen bookstore (The Water-lily Bookstore) in Gothenburg catered to all of Sweden north of Göinge Forest and south of Tiveden Forest and Kolmården Forest, which is quite a vast geographical region from Wermlandia (Värmland) to Eland Island (Öland). If I remember correctly, Näckrosen did have most of US Games' and Grimaud's production in store (or could order from these). I believe I might have noticed either a Dondorf or Brepols Lenormand there, but at the time I wasn't aware of the difference, and my memory is slightly blurry. Some old tarots, originally drawn in black and white, had become recoloured in the 1970s in quite hideous colour schemes with a lot of brown, orange, yellow, avocado and indigo: They were not appealing, but they were sadly still available in that shape throughout the 1980s and perhaps into the 1990s.

 

At the time, no tarot deck had yet been translated into Swedish. The Swedish RWCS and Crowley Thoth weren't translated until some time in the late 1990s or early 2000s if I remember correctly, but Swedish sixth- and seventh form schools taught decent English, French and German before the municipal councils became responsible for education, so we didn't need translations. It wasn't until the 2000s, the Swedish witch Jolanda III co-created a deck together with the horror illustrator Hans Arnold.

 

19 minutes ago, Raggydoll said:

Ooh, which one’s did you get?

 

1JJ Swiss and the then available US Games version of Rider Waite Colman Smith, because those two were frequently present in the few available handbooks about tarot, and, in the case of 1JJ Swiss also featured in the intro to the television show Tales of the Unexpected (presented by Roald Dahl). I have later learned, that the colour shades in that version of RWCS isn't entirely faithful to how the deck looked in 1909-10. As I wrote in another thread earlier this morning, my tarot taste has changed since then.

 

[Scandinavianhermit]

I may add, @Raggydoll, that my parents, who were and are the usual omnipresent homespun secular mix of Lutherans and Agnostics (who celebrate Christmas and All Saints, but seldom attend church services, and then mainly weddings and funerals), couldn't put heads nor tails on my hobby. In their world view, there only exist three card decks: The 52 playingcard deck, Happy Families, and the Swedish Kille deck (known as Cambio, Cuccú, Hexenspiel or Vogelspiel abroad).

[joy]

One other thing @Scandinavianhermit just came to my mind. If you want to read the traditional way, you can just either buy any ordinary playing cards you can write on. Then add the name of cards, eg Ace of Hearts is the Gentleman. And mark which side is the dark side of the clouds.

[joy]

12 hours ago, DanielJUK said:

You might find this old thread helpful @Scandinavianhermit -

 

The second post entitled "guest" is AndyB and in some of the further replies.

I think that there isn't a 100% agreed system to the directions, it's the card art (please someone correct me if that is wrong). I always read the card art like other cartomancy and Tarot, I look at patterns and directions. Each card art is different, but it's not the most important part of a reading, it gives you clues 🙂 .

 

Correct, there is no one agreed system. That post you quoted is very interesting as it shows the Lady and the Gentleman. In my opinion, what is important is, that a reader is very clear before even starting how to read. Do you want to use everything that is left of the Significator as their past, or do you want to use the imagery? Once you are clear just stick to it and you will be fine.

Again as there are different ways to read I would strongly advise to just start with one author.

[Scandinavianhermit]

7 hours ago, joy said:

One other thing @Scandinavianhermit just came to my mind. If you want to read the traditional way, you can just either buy any ordinary playing cards you can write on. Then add the name of cards, eg Ace of Hearts is the Gentleman. And mark which side is the dark side of the clouds.

Thank you. I might experiment with that later, but now I'm awaiting the delivery of a Grand Tableau Lenormand. I will also take a look at Andy Borovoshengra's book.