5th/6th Story – Ashbless Card

For more about the Smeraldo blog, click here.

Please do not repost my translations. Links to the page are appreciated. Translated by @courtneylazore.

This post was originally published as the 5th story in 2017, then deleted from the blog and reuploaded in 2018. The post was deleted again and reuploaded in 2020 as the 6th story.

In the last post, I told you about the story concerning the smeraldo. Do you remember the story about the playing card academic event, where I first heard about smeraldo? Aren’t you curious about how playing cards are related to the smeraldo? Today I’m going to tell you about the story of William Ashbless, a figure related to cards.

Not much is known about Ashbless. Almost all we know is that he was an Italian aristocrat and poet. Ashbless was also an authority on playing cards, which gained popularity in Europe in the 16th century. He produced playing cards for the court and the salons of noblewomen, and he was so absorbed in this that he even got sick.

It happened when he headed towards the countryside to recuperate. While he was recovering and looking for a place with fresh air and hot springs, Ashbless saw the smeraldo. In a ruined castle on the side of a rural village, a flower bloomed that was so beautiful it could not be believed to be of this world. He asked around the village for the name of the flower, but no one knew. But he heard of a love story involving the smeraldo from one old woman.

As you can see from how he was immersed in playing cards, Ashbless was a person with a romantic nature. The love story between the ugly man and the poor woman moved his heart. Ashbless gave the flower a name and its meaning on the spot. The flower was called “smeraldo” after the village it was in (“the city of smeraldo”), and the meaning of the flower is “the truth that couldn’t be told.”* When he returned to his estate, he created “the flower card” inspired by the smeraldo and included it as one of his Ashbless cards.

(*this is what the Korean translates to.)

When it’s in the upright direction, it means “fruition” or “enlightenment,” and when it’s in the upside-down position, it means “fall, end, and new start.”

The Ashbless card became a sensation in Europe. But now there are few people who remember that card. This is because the Ashbless family lost their power in a struggle with influential families and were subjected to the cruelty of being erased from history. Ashbless, the Ashbless card, the smeraldo, and the story of the smeraldo were forgotten.

But like all beautiful legends, just one thing remained, so not everything in these stories has been erased. So both the love story and the Ashbless story were able to come back to life. I’ll tell you about that story in the next posting.