A few blogs back, the subject was the face cards of a deck of playing cards. That got me to thinking…. there is an old recitation “song” that was popular in the fields of both popular and country music when I was younger, called “The Deck of Cards.”
The song relates the tale of a young American soldier that was arrested and charged with playing cards during a church service. I’m sure the lyrics are available on the Internet, but essentially the soldier’s defense is that explains how the cards relate to his religion — he went through the deck and explained how each card represented something about the bible, e.g. the six reminded him of the six days that God made the heaven and earth, the seven reminds hime that on the seventh day, God rested, etc. Anyhow, a lot things have been written about a deck of playing cards and how the cards relate to our world….
52 cards in a deck represents 52 weeks in a year
The 4 suits represents the 4 seasons
13 cards in each suit represents the 13 weeks in each season
2 red and 2 black suits represent the 4 different solstices
The 12 Royals (face cards) represent the 12 months
And some believe the 4 suits also represent the four natural elements:
Hearts = Water
Clubs = fire
Diamonds = Earth
Spades = Air
These comparisons have been going on for hundreds of years — early writings say that the suits on a deck of cards represent the four major pillars of the economy in the Middle Ages:
Hearts represented the Church, Spades represented the military, Clubs represented agriculture and Diamonds represented the merchant class.
I suppose there’s enough interesting facts about playing card to fill a book — I’m sure someone has written a book like that, but since this is just a blog, here’s a couple that I discovered while doing extensive research on the subject….
The King of Hearts is the only king without a mustache — and — pictures of early English playing cards shows the King of Hearts wielding an axe. But due to poor copying by blockmakers the axe lost its head over the years and the shaft was turned into a sword that appears to be driven into the king’s head, and earned him the nickname of “Suicide King.”
During World War II, specially-constructed decks of cards were sent to American soldiers who were being held in German prison camps. The United States Playing Card Company collaborated with the government to produce these cards. Once they became wet, they peeled apart. Inside, the prisoners found parts of maps that would lead them to freedom.
Today, Bicycle Cards are the most widely recognized decks of cards in the world and their recognizable design we just take for granted, but the evolution of a modern deck of 52 cards is a process that took place over hundreds of years.
The earliest confirmed record of playing cards was found in a manuscript written by a German monk named Johannes in 1377. Johannes was living in a Swiss monastery and wrote about the development of playing cards and the variety of card games they could be used for.So like most things, something as simple as a deck of cards has a unique, fascinating history….
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