More than any of the other suits,the Court cards in the suit of Cups span a vast range of sacred expression,from the Old Stone Age to Christianity. Somewhere between lies the age of Paganism,what people sometimes call “the old religion.”We can never truly know the concepts underlying the cave paintings and sculptures. Any guesses we make say as much about us as the artworks themselves. The Old Stone Age gave way to the New,with its stone circles and its Earth-based goddess worship. We find some record of these people’s beliefs,at least at the very end of that era. By contrast,the more patriarchal religions that came after the Stone Age lasted long enough to leave behind a great deal of information about their ideas,symbols,and rituals. This is one reason Haindl made Odin the Father of Cups. Another reason is the very character of that late Pagan religion. Stressing the sky over the earth,the religion of Odin (and Zeus in Greece or Jupiter in Rome) became a religion of intellect rather than of bodies. Notice in the picture that we see only Odin’s head and arm. The father of cups shows the same mythological scene as the Hanged Man,except that the Court card gives us the original story and not Hermann Haindl’s idealized revision of it. In the myth,Odin seeks the magical alphabet called the Runes. Here,too,we find the emphasis on intellect,since writing removes us one step from physical reality by arranging experience into concepts. The Runes lie in the hidden darkness of Mimir’s Well at the foot of Yggdrasil,the World Tree. To get them,Odin hangs n the tree for nine days and nights. Then he must surrender an eye to Mimir,giving up part of his physical senses in order to develop his intellect. For Hermann Haindl,this story carries clear symbolism for European history. We can think of the Runes as technology,as that power that has allowed European culture to create a comfortable life,but at the expense of both nature and other peoples. And the partial blindness,the separation from the Earth,represents the technological arrogance and blindness to the results of environmental destruction. And yet,Odin also embodies love of knowledge and a commitment to wisdom,no matter what the sacrifice. Beyond him,on the left of the card,we see the two birds,Hugin and Munin,Thought and Memory,bringing news of all the world. Through intellect we can reach beyond our limited senses to gain understanding of the universe itself. In this way,Odin is probably the most complex figure in all the Court cards.