Arthurian Legend - The Fives

WalesWoman

I get a lot of different interpretations for the fives.

For starts 5 Swords drives me nuts... especially this one with the body of a woman and a dog lying face down across the horses back, the reins aren't dragging, so someone we can't see is leading this horse through the bogs, marshland. I feel like the sun is setting, but it could be rising...upright this card is supposed to have a little bit positive going for it... but I don't see it.

Most of my experience with this card has been an interpretation of being led astray because of percieved losses. I can't decide if these figures are being rescued or going to be dumped in secrecy.

I'll write more about some of the other fives later.
 

Lyones

For starts 5 Swords drives me nuts ...

You too, huh? :) ... it's one of those cards I look at and groan.

I've had this card turn up when I'm feeling embarrassed or guilty, or some other feeling I just plain don't like about myself - a touch of paranoia "what will people say?", "what have I done!" Times when I feel weak and ashamed, even if it is not necessarily warranted - just inadequate.

I also found recently that it pointed to the way I treated someone else which made them feel admonished, even though that was not my intension ... which I suppose is from a lack of clear communication ... and being most miserable about making someone feel like a heel, and probably warrants an apology.

It can be the humiliation of being found out - something you didn't want anyone to know - loss of face with someone you may have been trying to impress.

I can identify with Gawain as he trudges his horse back through the marshy wasteland ... however ... even though the feelings and thoughts are confused, and a loss has been suffered, there are lilacy flowers of some kind, and the water although it is not flowing, is there - I believe it shows that the situation can be sorted out for the most part.
 

WalesWoman

One of the things that occured to me today for the 5 Swords could be words that wound...hurting the ones you love (your girl and man's best friend) thoughtlessly or even cold heartedly, but I would think it would be after loosing control of temper or patience. I guess that's just what you said, Lyones.

Oooh, how about something that "dogs" you...things you'd like to forget but they follow you around.

Since there are reins on the horse, I think of it as a responsibility, something that needs to be taken care of. With the flowers, I also think it could be being led away from something, or out of the quagmire, out of danger...those bogs are dangerous, one false step and you disappear forever.

So it could be that we are being guided by unseen forces out of a dangerous situation, or one that has hurt or disabled us in some way.

I know I've had it come up in readings where someone was making a situation appear in a such a way that I was going to suffer a great loss, and was leading me on...so that he could appear as a rescuer...taking care of me, but was misrepresenting everything and basically leading me astray. Luckily I wasn't as unconscious as the woman flung across the horse's back, tho it didn't stop me from having a real freaking out time...thinking I could be going to experience a major loss and change in my life and have to leave, which would make me feel very, very dead inside.
 

RedMaple

Lyones said:
I've had this card turn up when I'm feeling embarrassed or guilty, or some other feeling I just plain don't like about myself - a touch of paranoia "what will people say?", "what have I done!" Times when I feel weak and ashamed, even if it is not necessarily warranted - just inadequate.

I also found recently that it pointed to the way I treated someone else which made them feel admonished, even though that was not my intension ... which I suppose is from a lack of clear communication ... and being most miserable about making someone feel like a heel, and probably warrants an apology.

It can be the humiliation of being found out - something you didn't want anyone to know - loss of face with someone you may have been trying to impress.

I can identify with Gawain as he trudges his horse back through the marshy wasteland ... however ... even though the feelings and thoughts are confused, and a loss has been suffered, there are lilacy flowers of some kind, and the water although it is not flowing, is there - I believe it shows that the situation can be sorted out for the most part.

Yes, Gawain's punishment is that he must travel with this woman's body , and with her head tied around his neck, so all can see his shame.

However, he then becomes the champion of all women, and in fact becomes the husband of Dame Ragnelle (the Loathly Lady). He would never have been able to free her from her curse if he hadn't gone through this horrible and humiliating experience.

I haven't really been reading with this deck yet, mostly just getting to know it - but I think this is a really useful card, and clear to read, although, yes, I'd probably groan seeing it -- who wants to go through this boggy place. Interesting that we don't see Gawain in the picture -- a hint that we shouldn't look at another's shame. It is hard to forgive a person who's seen you at your worse.

I'll look at more of the fives tomorrow. Glad to be back and to see this thread posted.
 

Lyones

It is hard to forgive a person who's seen you at your worse.

RedMaple, that is so true! ... or to forgive yourself for being at your worst.
 

WalesWoman

Five Shields- The Wasteland

Ok, how about don't beat a dead horse for 5 Shields- The Wasteland? At first I thought it was a dragon skeleton, but once I took off my glasses (waiting for my bifocals to get here) I could tell that those are ravens flying up from the carcass. Death is in this card...or a very, very malnourished person who's poking their walking stick at the ravens, along with someone who looks very broken up emotionally. It looks like a scene from nuclear winter, the only color is the yellow lichen on the broken husks of trees and just a hint of yellow around the skeletal remains of some beast, a horse I'm sure. Everything is broken and dead, shrouded by mist. Even the castle in the back ground appears abandoned.

The story behind this is the sacred bond between land and king was broken, so the once fertile land around Castle Grail becomes wasted and barren. There is no growth, no children born, all live in grief and fear. The land reflects it's ruler, mirroring illness or old age, prolonged wars or death of a much loved knight on whom the land depends, when the Quest is achieved, when the hero asks the appropriate question and restores the king, the land can be freed of the curse. OK, guess I need to read more Arthur ledendgs to understand all of this. King Lot's sons, one being Gawain, killed Pellinore, a King of the Isles and ally of Arthur in revenge for the death of their father, which led to blood fueds in the circle of the Round Table, and the fall of Camelot I'm guessing.

No wonder Gawain was chosen to marry the hag Dame Ragnell (9 Shields)and tohonor, protect and restore to women what they had lost (6 Shields), he had a lot to atone for, but ended up restoring the land when he said the right thing...finally.
 

Lyones

The 5 of Shields conjures up the feeling of abandoning hope, of loneliness and being deprived, it is cold and heartless - whatever was of value, is no longer there. There is not enough - the people suffer from hunger, weakness, frailty, illness and feel helpless to rectify matters. It seems they don't stand a chance of ever being happy again with everything conspiring against them ... and yet life goes on - I think that the birds in flight are symbolic of lifting one's spirits and choosing to go on, to find a direction that will nourish and provide what is lacking.
 

WalesWoman

OH too much! I just spent the morning looking at this card in a spread I was doing for YOU! (fortunately for you, it was concerning someone in your life and not yours)

Total desolation here, fog shrouding everything. There is no sustainence, down to the bare bones of the situation. Are the birds uplifting, that life goes on or that even in death nothing is wasted, that sometimes death is what allows anothers life to be sustained? Sometimes you have put aside your pride to scavange for what you can get or move on to with the hope of something better in another place. All this was caused by a weak king breaking the trust with the land, putting his will above the good of all? I think that's how it goes. So maybe this is the result when they say, "Pride goeth before the fall"

On a lighter note, it could mean a trip to Salvation Army or some second hand store, or a yard sale and all the "ravens" flocking around the table of discards and other such treasures. A heavier one would be an estate sale.

If I was a paleontologist, I might get excited thinking of discovering some fossil in a ''wasteland"...sorry, imagination going into overdrive.
 

Lyones

If I was a paleontologist, I might get excited thinking of discovering some fossil in a ''wasteland"...sorry, imagination going into overdrive.

*lol* and what an imagination! ... which brings us to the 5 of Spears :) "A need to calmly focus and redirect scattered energies toward one goal" ... besides, you would probably find more fossils on Tintagel - for those of us that don't live in the area and have never been there, you can see what it looks like now at http://ftp.newave.net.au/~sahill/travel/england/tintagel/tintag_4.htm (click on "More Tintagel Castle" at the bottom of the page to see the cliffs) - looking at those made this card very real to me and emphasised what a struggle and challenge it must have been for Uther's men, like they knew they couldn't do it, but they tried anyway.
 

WalesWoman

Great link...I honestly didn't know the Castle even existed. That really brings this card to life doesn't it? Wow! I want to go there, wander around the ruins and really let my imagination go on over drive! To touch the stones and maybe "see" a glimpse from the past. If not, then just imagine one.