The Lenormand Grand Tableau I: The Game Of Hope

Going back to the origins of the Lenormand Grand Tableau

Since we’ve already covered the later Kipper version of Lenormand’s famous Grand Tableau layout, instead of beginning with shorter readings as I have previously, I’m actually going to begin our closer look at Lenormand with the Grand Tableau, rather than leaving it until last.

The reason for this is that while it is a spread that tends to intimidate new readers, and many complications and so-called “rules” have been added into methods of reading it over the years, in actual fact, it started off as being a pretty simple game for reading indeed.

So this post is going to take us back to its origins as a parlour game used purely for entertainment.

Back To Hechtel’s Das Spiel Der Hoffnung; The Game Of Hope

As you’ll know if you’ve read my Introduction, the so-called Petit Lenormand cards widely known as “Lenormand” today actually had very little to do with the famous French fortune-teller Mlle Marie Lenormand herself, despite all the marketing and mythos. She may have had access to them, she may have not, but they certainly were not created by her at all, nor, in fact, in France.

The cards were instead a direct copy of a German parlour game released in 1799 by a Nuremberg publishing house that had been created by German card game manufacturer Johann Hechtel, (Hechtel also died in 1799).

Das Spiel der Hoffnung (Game of Hope) cards, 1799 design, in 6x6 gameplay layout

The gameplay on Hechtel’s Das Spiel Der Hoffnung deck (above) had three possible “modes”: