A-Z Of Traditional Bohemian Fortune Telling Card Meanings

An A-Z List Of Card Meanings For the Traditional Austro-Hungarian "Zigeuner" or Bohemian Decks

A-Z Of Bohemian Cards & Meanings (In English)

Cards in Bohemian decks aren’t numbered, so we’ll just list them by their alphabetical titles here in English. As they are part of a clear oracle card tradition and are strongly linked to other 19th century and early 20th century European decks, they should be very familiar to those of you who’ve been following this newsletter for a while.

I’ve noted below where their card meanings are similar and to which decks—while it’s often the case that they are, they aren’t always directly derived from the Italian La Vera Sibilla. You’ll sometimes see crossover with the French Sibylle des Salons/Indovina as well, and naturally a lot of these eventually show up in the Kipper also, as this is largely derived from the Bohemian cards.

Subscribers can access detailed card meanings via the indexes to those oracle decks via the buttons below.

What you’ll mainly notice is that Bohemian cards tend to go more for the most dramatic, and sometimes dark, version of the feelings and energies involved. It’s more the soap-opera version than than a subtle look at human nature, if you like. No sugar-coating whatsoever, unlike in other decks.

Generally, I don’t use reversals with Bohemian fortune telling cards although you can if you wish, so I haven’t listed them below. Tip: as with most decks, reversed meanings usually indicate an end to the quality or energy, the direct opposite of it… or that energy intensifying.

So let’s begin! We’ll be going through all 36 in this post in groups of four: