La Mort Tarot

The earliest known tarot card decks date to the early 1400s, and for several centuries they were used simply as game cards, becoming associated with divination only after the 1780s. While the first tarot cards were hand-painted, for most of their existence they were printed from woodcuts using the same techniques that I use today.

This design is my North Atlantic interpretation of the thirteenth trump card of the tarot deck – La Mort – which traditionally depicts an image of death as a skeletal figure, sometimes with a sickle in hand. My version features a powerful mermaid with serpentine tentacles holding a hakapik (a hooked club) stolen from a sealer. In the folklore of North Atlantic countries, the mermaid is most often considered a bad omen, a bringer of storms and shipwrecks. In this version, she lies in wait, looking at the ship in the distance. In divination, this card is often interpreted as signifying a change of thinking from an old way into a new way.