Hi Sulis - we are still with the Faeries. If you read this thread completely, you will see that Rosanne is answering a query of mine concerning the Crown of Stars that both Epona's Wild Daughter and the Faery Godmother is wearing. Personally I find the link to Astarte and to Ishtar/Innana - through the crown of stars and the Queen of Heaven motif - to be quite fascinating:
Innana/Ishtar's central myth is her Descent to the dark realms of Ereshkigal, her sister, and the Queen of the Underworld. This is exactly what Epona's Wild Daughter makes us do - she leads us into darkness, through initiation by descent into nightmare, depression, madness even. In the Myth, Innana arrives in Ereshkigal's kingdom, where she must divest herself of all attributes of power, one by one, at every one of Ereshkigal's seven gates, until she is naked. Then she is judged and Ereshkigal kills her bloodily and hangs her body on a meat hook where it putrefies for three days before she is revived.
Modern-day Jungian therapists used the myth of the descent of Ishtar as a metaphor for clinical depression. But I would say it fits nightmares and the dark night of the soul very well too - indeed more, for dark nights of the soul and many nightmares hold within them a strong mythical element which goes far beyond the psychological - which touches upon our spiritual initiation.
I believe Dorcha brings us through this dark night of the soul. Her being crowned with stars shows her kinship to Ishtar/Innana/Astarte. She is a frightening faerie but a necessary one. I had not thought to find her in what is - at first sight - a pretty pack of cards with therapeutic qualities. But she is there in full mythic glory: and she brings nightmares - and demands blood sacrifice.
I was even more surprised to receive - the next night - the Faery Godmother, another incarnation of the Queen of Heaven, and the one that can get us through the dark night of the soul safely.