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
Deuce (playing card) between the Deuce and the Sow is evinced by Johann Leonhard Frisch in his 1741 German-Latin dictionary: ""Sow in card game, from the figure of a sow, which is painted on the Deuce of Acorns, whence the other deuces are also called Sows."" How the boar ended up on the playing card is unknown. Hellmut Rosenfeld suspects that it was derived from the prize sow that played a role in local shooting festivals ("Schützenfesten") and which was linked with the last sheaf of the harvest. The description "Sau" may have been a corruption of the word "Daus", and the depiction