Hemera
Step FOUR~Tarot of Vampyres~The Empress
1) The Story.
Once upon a time there was an apple tree in a cottage garden. The cottage was deserted
but one of the apples knew a story about its previous inhabitants. There had been
dwarves. A beautiful dark haired queen had come to the cottage pretending to sell apples
and there was a lot of hassle about the whole thing. Knights on white horses galloped
through the garden and people cried at someone´s funeral and that sort of thing. Finally
one of the dwarves had tossed an apple out from the cottage window and in landed right
where the apple tree still stands. If it hasn´t been felled down and burnt in a
woodstove, that is.
2)The Story re-told in the first person.
I am not like all the other apples who are just talking about ripening. I have decided that I want to become a real apple tree like my mother when I grow up. I think she had an amazing youth and I love all the stories she has told. But the most amazing of them is the story of how she was born and I was reminded by that when I saw that strange lady standing below us again. I think she was part of that story. Back in those days she was said to have taken an apple (my mom) and poisoned and colored one half of it red. Poison I understand, but why color a perfectly beautiful green apple red? That is a sacrilege. Well, anyway, she gave that apple to some young person who supposedly almost died or something. Why did that beautiful Queen do it? I never really got that part of the story. But I know for a fact that a dwarf threw my mom out of the cottage window and she ended up in a compost pile. And well...I guess the compost pile used to be where we are now. The dwarves are long gone but looks like the Queen is still around. Someone said she now lives in this cottage although I have not seen her here often. They say she was thrown out of the castle and told to stay away. I guess she travels quite a bit. Was she really Evil is anybody´s guess. Mom says the girl was not as perfect as is widely believed so maybe the Queen was not that bad either?
3) Personal experiences that relate to some portions of your story.
Snow White has always been my favorite fairytale and favorite princess. I did have rather a difficult mother myself so I think I can relate to the story of the little princess and her evil stepmother. But in human life good and evil are different things than in fairytales where concepts like these are naturally more archetypal.
Somehow I see this Empress could very well be the Evil Queen from Snow While and yet I do not think she is actually evil at all. She is like the Mother Goddess who has both dark and light aspects. Much like any human mother or any human being. I think this Empress is more interesting with all this depth than the average “all good” Empresses from many traditional RWS decks.
1) The Story.
Once upon a time there was an apple tree in a cottage garden. The cottage was deserted
but one of the apples knew a story about its previous inhabitants. There had been
dwarves. A beautiful dark haired queen had come to the cottage pretending to sell apples
and there was a lot of hassle about the whole thing. Knights on white horses galloped
through the garden and people cried at someone´s funeral and that sort of thing. Finally
one of the dwarves had tossed an apple out from the cottage window and in landed right
where the apple tree still stands. If it hasn´t been felled down and burnt in a
woodstove, that is.
2)The Story re-told in the first person.
I am not like all the other apples who are just talking about ripening. I have decided that I want to become a real apple tree like my mother when I grow up. I think she had an amazing youth and I love all the stories she has told. But the most amazing of them is the story of how she was born and I was reminded by that when I saw that strange lady standing below us again. I think she was part of that story. Back in those days she was said to have taken an apple (my mom) and poisoned and colored one half of it red. Poison I understand, but why color a perfectly beautiful green apple red? That is a sacrilege. Well, anyway, she gave that apple to some young person who supposedly almost died or something. Why did that beautiful Queen do it? I never really got that part of the story. But I know for a fact that a dwarf threw my mom out of the cottage window and she ended up in a compost pile. And well...I guess the compost pile used to be where we are now. The dwarves are long gone but looks like the Queen is still around. Someone said she now lives in this cottage although I have not seen her here often. They say she was thrown out of the castle and told to stay away. I guess she travels quite a bit. Was she really Evil is anybody´s guess. Mom says the girl was not as perfect as is widely believed so maybe the Queen was not that bad either?
3) Personal experiences that relate to some portions of your story.
Snow White has always been my favorite fairytale and favorite princess. I did have rather a difficult mother myself so I think I can relate to the story of the little princess and her evil stepmother. But in human life good and evil are different things than in fairytales where concepts like these are naturally more archetypal.
Somehow I see this Empress could very well be the Evil Queen from Snow While and yet I do not think she is actually evil at all. She is like the Mother Goddess who has both dark and light aspects. Much like any human mother or any human being. I think this Empress is more interesting with all this depth than the average “all good” Empresses from many traditional RWS decks.