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Mainichi Hanafuda: wisteria ribbon & animal

A blank red ribbon and a cuckoo are the subjects of today's cards.

That's the last of the three blank "dry" ribbons. There's one more plain red ribbon besides the three I've already posted, but it's distinguised from them in the scoring of some hanafuda games. On some cards, the ribbon looks pasted-on and floats intrusively over the background image. In this one, I like how it appears to be fluttering down from the wisteria branch.

This bird is supposed to look like an oriental cuckoo. Behind it is, perhaps, a crescent moon? I wasn't too sure about that one, but there's a kind of sliver shape on all the cuckoo cards I saw, so there's one on mine too. Plus it has the red clouds--a giveaway hint that this is an 'animal' card.

2 comments:

Parsa said...

Tsuki-Ni-Hototogisu, the moon with nightingale, another famous pair. These pairings are all traditional. Here is an Ando Hiroshige fan print:
http://www.hiroshige.org.uk/hiroshige/strange/illustrations/006.jpg

Parsa said...

Also here:
http://www.eaudrey.com/myth/Japan/tsuki.htm