Saint Campio

Kille , also called Harlequin, Cambio, Campio, Kambio or Kamfio, is a game played with special playing cards, dating from a medieval French gambling game. In Sweden, the game had its heyday during the 1750s, but it is one of the oldest card games still played. The French gambling game of Coucou was invented in France around 1500 and spread across Central Europe. In the late 17th century, an Italian manufacturer produced a deck of cards adapted for the game. The game was named Cuccú after its highest card. Cuccú had 38 cards and two cards of each denomination (thus 19 unique denominations). Eleven of the cards in each suite were numeral cards, numbered 0-10. The other cards were picture cards, two of which – the Bucket and the Masque – ranked lower than the numerals. Five of the cards were ranked higher: the Inn, Cat, Horse, Guard, and Cuckoo (highest). The nineteenth card, the Fool, the precursor of Kille's Harlequin, was outside the rankings and its value was determined by the game played and could vary during the same game. Cuccú spread north across Europe and became known in southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland under the names of Hexenspiel and Vogelkarten, which literally mean "Witch game" and "Bird cards". The card game changed somewhat on its journey through Europe and was mentioned in Sweden as Campio for the first time in 1741 in a court record. Campio was a distortion of cambio or camfio, which was the name that began to be used in Sweden. The name Kille is first documented in 1833 (found in private correspondence from 1826) and was widely used from the 1850s. Kille is probably a corruption of Harlequin which was now the highest ranked card, but still had a special position in some games. The card game's numeral and picture cards changed so that the pack consisted of 42 cards (again in pairs, so there were only 21 denominations). The number of numerals had increased to twelve and were numbered 1-12.