Fairytale Tarot (MRP) -- Nine of Swords

Master_Margarita

This card is truly brought to life by Hans Christian Andersen's tale The Little Mermaid, which can be found, apparently in full, here.

I should caution any readers of this thread who grew up on the Disney version of the Little Mermaid (as I did on the Disney Snow White). Andersen's original story is very dark. There really isn't what you call a happy ending in the traditional sense, just a sickly-sweet Christian promise of salvation in three hundred years that to me seems pasted on.

The little mermaid has what seems to be the bad luck of falling in love with a guy inappropriate for her, and spends the rest of her life trying to turn herself into something she's not to please him, whereas he is just not that into her (although not malicious at all). When described like that, the story sounds distinctly contemporary. The card's image catches the moment when the little mermaid has just made a desperate deal with the witch to change her form to human, which we know is a big mistake.

The Nine of Swords is nicknamed the "nightmare" card, and stands for anxieties and nightmarish thoughts, disappointment, histrionic victimization and self-blame, and so on. There is a suggestion that, somewhat like the Eight of Swords, the sufferer is complicit or at least cooperative in his or her own suffering, and very much unlike the Eight of Swords, that this suffering might have a spiritually transformative end. The combination of this story with this card is, IMO, very complex and I have barely scratched the surface here.

:heart: M_M~