Magyar Tarot

Like a Hungarian Tarokk pack, this pack has 54 cards, French suits (four courts and four numeral cards in each suit), and 22 ‘trumps’. There, however, the similarities end. These cards (the creation of Mrs Schmidt and Dr Holló Erzwébet) are smaller and are definitely intended for fortune-telling rather than for a trick-taking game. The unconventional and somewhat surreal designs are simple and the colouring (red, yellow, green, blue, black) straightforward. For the four suits, a single suit-sign sits boldly in the centre, with an appropriate number of stars helping to indicate the card value on the numeral cards, and a single element (a crown, a sword, a boot, etc.) appearing at the foot of each court card. The ‘trumps’ or major arcana represent the following:

Above: Magyar Tarot fortune-telling cards published by Vörös Rébék Studio P.Y.G., Budapest, Hungary, 1991. Printer unknown. 54 cards + 12-page booklet in Hungarian, in tuck box. Size: 57 x 88 mm.

The titles and booklet are in Hungarian. The cards are pleasing to the touch as they have a matt finish. While the visual language is a radical departure from the more commonly known Rider-Waite or Marseille decks, these cards distil the core meanings of the traditional trumps by avoiding classical grandeur and presenting raw, archetypal energies in an unconventional manner. • See the box