Curse of Scotland Gurney Benham's book about playing cards, in describing the game of Pope Joan he gives his own explanation for why this card is known as the Curse of Scotland: "The crown of Scotland contained only nine stones, as they never could afford a tenth". Eric Partridge's "Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang" considers: “the various theories are as interesting as they are unconvincing”. "Collins Encyclopedia of Scotland" says for "Curse of Scotland" "This is usually taken to be the nine of diamonds playing card, though explanations differ". The 19th century Tarot of Marseilles is one of the standard designs for tarot
Playing card down. The latter two correspond with the "ober" and "unter" cards found in German and Swiss playing cards. The Italians and Iberians replaced the / system with the "Knight" and "" or "" before 1390, perhaps to make the cards more visually distinguishable. In England, the lowest court card was called the "knave" which originally meant "male child" (compare German ), so in this context the character could represent the "prince", son to the king and queen; the meaning "servant" developed later. Queens appeared sporadically in packs as early as 1377, especially in Germany. Although the Germans abandoned the queen