Fairytale Tarot (MRP) -- Justice

[Master_Margarita]

This card is explicated by the Grimm Brothers tale of The Juniper Tree, which can be found in its entirely here. I note that the companion book to this deck urges us to read the original tale because the author feels it is hard to get a flavor of the tale from the summary.

This isn't a very well-known tale as far as I know. I was totally unfamiliar with it before I began my study of this deck. It's quite artfully told at the link above.

This tale is a revenge fantasy. It is particularly cruel in the way the mother makes her own daughter believe she killed her half-brother, nauseating in the way the father relishes the stew that, unbeknownst to him is his own son, and sickeningly satisfying in the way that the wicked mother is terrorized with a consciousness of doom before she is killed by a falling millstone (a very fairy-tale way to die, I might add). What's really interesting is the extreme power of the tree.

With this story, the Old Testament notion of an eye-for-an-eye is highlighted as the meaning of this card. In sunnier contexts, of course, it can mean just rewards for virtue (although we have all been told that virtue is its own reward).

M_M~