The Fairy Tale Tarot (Hunt) -Eight of Swords

[genna]

In this picture two women are standing before an old tree, and a third in the background seems to be running away. Eight swords on the ground point at the two women. They are mother and daughter, but the daughter is much more richly dressed than the mother, with gems dangling on her skirt. The daughter has brown hair and a white shirt, with a blue corset on it. The corset is tied with strings. The skirt is golden and beautifully worked with lots of curved lines. Gems hang down from the girl´s waist, and you can tell the outfit is very expensive.
However, the daughter is living a nightmare. One snake and two frogs have apperantly slided out of her mouth, and the second snake is on it´s way out of the mouth of the poor girl, who is horrorstruck. The mother, in white apron and green shawl cradels her face in her hands, and looks, if possible, more aghast than her daughter.
There are no leavs on the tree and brown leaves are blowing by. A cruel face can be seen in the tree trunk, looking at the two women. The second daughter, who is running away, looks back over her shoulder. She is dressed in a red blouse, and lilac skirt.

[genna]

The story is abour a badly treated daughter, who served an old women water by a well. The woman was a fairy in disguise, and gave the girl the gift that coins and gems would drop from her lips when she spoke. The next day came the spoiled daughter, planning to try her luck too. This time the fairy was richly dressed, and the girl didn´t know her and was rude, and didn´t serve her water. She got the curse that snakes and frogs would slide from her mouth as she spoke.
I think the story shows that bad behaviour traps you, and keeps you from the finer things in life. Also, you should be corteous to everyone, because you never know with whom you are really speaking.

[genna]

Once this card meant for me that I had said something I shouldn´t have in an e-mail.
I remember, when a child, on hearing this story, I felt sorry for the spoilt girl, because in that version her mother at last couldn´t stand her and chased her from their home, (so that she died alone in a wood in my imagination).

[Surja76]

Eight of Swords symbolizes judgments, sometimes biased, carping, meticulous of control, censure, labeling, unenlightened view, distortion and profanation of words, evil gossips, misrepresentation.
This card told us about the enemies who try to disturb the settled way of your life. Eight of Swords says the crisis in relations with neighbors and colleagues about verbal barriers.
We see that the woman was under the influence of her own cruel words, and now she is helpless, constrained by the circumstances in which she drove herself.
We can see third woman on the card who is escaping. It means that problems we survive are happened because of influence of other people. But if we were careful this never happened with us, this situation could be escaped, we are themselves are the reason of this problem, sometimes we provoke other people for such actions.

But It is possible that we can become a victim of betrayal on the part of other people.

[genna]

Thank you, Surja76, for your interesting comment. You explained the meaning so well.