Bicycle Celtic Myth Gaelic Playing Cards

Bicycle Celtic Gaelic Deck

A beautifully unique hand-drawn Celtic Playing Card Deck featuring iconic images celebrating the rich Celtic tradition of Gods, Goddesses, and heroes. This deck features the Cauldron of the Dagda design from the Ace of Hearts on the face of the tuck case. On its reverse is the Twin Dragons design that connects the imagery of the sacred pool over which grew the hazel trees of divine knowledge, and in which swam the salmon of knowledge made famous in the Irish Boyhood Deeds of Fionn MacCumhaill and cognate with the Welsh story of Taliesin. Around this pool are shown twin dragons, horned serpents that invoke the image of Cernunnos on the Gundestrup Cauldron. This deck is colloquially referred to as ‘The Gaelic Deck’ because the language on its tuck case is primarily in a modern version of Classical Irish, the immediate ancestor of modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic.

Two opposing figures from early Irish mythology are featured on each face card – these work as compliments to the Bicycle Celtic Asymmetrical Deck. Every element of the cards’ iconography is hand-drawn from medieval Irish literature and classical Celtic traditions, from the style of decoration on Earnmbás’ headpiece to the knot work around Lugh. The traditional suits have been transformed into the four magic items of the Tuatha Dé Danann: club, spade, diamond, and heart corresponding to the magical spear, sword, stone and cauldron that the Irish faeries brought from the magical cities of the North. This deck is one of a triad alongside the Bicycle Celtic Symmetrical Deck and the Bicycle Symmetrical Deck