I have just transferred this image to a small copper plate 5” x 3” and have begun needling it. It will be the jack in my suit of cat cards, As in earlier face cards for this suit, there is a central figure surrounded by fairy minions, an iconic cat, in this case an Egyptian sculpture of Bubastis, and a few mice.

There doesn’t appear to be a figure corresponding to a youthful male fairy, heir to the throne, unless it is Oberon, a person that I have already designated for the role of king. I had to leave the fairy world to go in search of an appropriate character, whom I found in the person of Baldur, beloved and supposedly invulnerable son of the Norse All-Father Odin. Although apparently there is some variation in this story, accounts agree that his mother Frigg, having had premonition of his violent death, exacted a promise from all things of earth that they would not harm him. Unfortunately for Baldur she neglected to secure a promise from the innocuous mistletoe. Loki, seeing his opportunity to make mischief, fashioned a dart or arrow of this plant and inveigled another god to hurl it at him, mortally wounding him.

Here he is shown enjoying his palace lifestyle. The images behind him, taken loosely from the so-called “Intervention” of the Sabine Women, a painting by Jacques Louis David, presage future strife.