Mixing Fairy Cards and Tarot Cards, Part II

One of the things that distinguishes “The Heart of Faerie Oracle” from Brian Froud’s previous Faeries Oracle is the inclusion of nine Faerie Queens: The Queen of the Golden Bough, Bedlam, Night, Day, Passage, Owls, Hearth and Home, Shadows, and Laughter. In folklore, there is a certain amount of crossover between fairy queens and goddesses such as Diana, Holda, and Freya. Fairy queens also have Ancestor World connections, as we see with some of the Irish fairy queens depicted in Mason and Franklin’s “Fairy Circle” Oracle, where certain fairies (such as Aine) have been regarded as clan mothers. Consequently, when you get one of the fairy queens in a reading, you might consider the possibility that some protective maternal powers are coming through.

At our May 2nd workshop, two persons drew fairy queens as their “fairy friends” (cards to take home). Coincidentally, these are sisters, one having gotten the Queen of the Golden Bough, and the other, the Queen of Passage. In such a case, it would be interesting for them to compare notes as to whether they have sensed any spiritually protective and guiding energies associated with a strong maternal presence at pivotal times in their lives, (as both of these fairy queens have liminal qualities, i.e., they are concerned with life’s transitions.) Because I had only one of each type of card in my give-away deck from which people drew these fairy talismans, it is possible that a single maternal entity is trying to connect through the two different cards—though of course, all of us have a multitude of maternal (and paternal) energy streams from which we can draw inspiration when we consider our genetic heritage.

When we mixed the fairy cards into our respective tarot decks to see how these fairy energies/entities might express themselves and offer guidance in different areas of our lives, the one sister got The Moon and the Two of Pentacles in association with the Queen of the Golden Bough, and the other got the Five of Swords and the Three of Pentacles in association with the Queen of Passage. (The latter was using the “Princess” tarot, which I don’t have, and I failed to note what the former was using, so I can’t reconstruct whether there were any unique image combinations, and so will have to stick to general interpretations.) Wendy Froud emphasizes the Queen of the Golden Bough as a card of soul healing, and also for healing “World Sorrow,” which is that sense of grieving for everything that’s wrong with the world. Because the Moon has a lot to do with the Unconscious, including dreams, dream exploration and the like can be a good way for this person to access the sort of healing that the Queen of the Golden Bough has to offer, and, indeed, this fairy queen may well be sending her comforting communications through Unconscious channels. The Two of Pentacles would suggest finding a way to bring the Queen’s healing, nurturing energies into the demands of daily life, to create a greater sense of balance by infusing life with soul. In the other reading, the Five of Swords, in common with the other Fives cards, can signify a time of transition, when a previously secure situation has become destabilized; with Swords cards, the changes in question can activate the survival instinct, sometimes also challenging a person’s ideals. However, the Queen of Passage is good for offering guidance when things are in flux, because she enables us to see events as part of a progression, as well as the creative opportunities present in times of change. This relates to the pomegranate which she holds, a fertility symbol showing, “[t]here is growth in the future.” Here, the Three of Pentacles reinforces the idea of applying these energies to creative projects.

To be continued.