Firstly I gotta say I love this Unicorn Terrace. I am always seeing Unicorns leaping around my bookshelves. In fact I think sometimes horses go there just to pretend for a while......
If in the adventure, their white paint runs off, they drop their wings and horns- well thats OK, they can dream of a donkey that carried a King. Which brings me to the subject at hand.......
Chi-Rho the so called Christian symbol of the first two letters of Christ....and frogs.
I have seen in quite a few paintings of the Tarot Birth years a frog on the table. One would be in Bosch's painting of the Conjurer and there is a frog on the table. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conjur ... ainting%29
Now here is a picture of some crosses from the late 15th Century on bases. http://www.magazine.utoronto.ca/00summer/change.asp
I have seen a tiny picture of one of these and inside the base was a small carved frog. On the outside was a Chi- Rho- which incidentally was originally a Chaldean symbol for the Sky God before been used for Christ.
I have seen some early Tarot de Marseille (but cannot think which ones) with a shell on the table which I think might have been a frog, but as it has become indistinguishable- so it is presumed to be a spiral shell.
I am trying to get my head around this. What is the connection between what the Conjurer does and the Frog and Christ? Could it be a nod to the magic?
~Lorredan
Chi-Rhos and Frogs and other Unicorns
1The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts
Eden Phillpotts