Tarot tells a Tale of Saint George

Tarot as a story-telling tool- or for channelling. Who can say for sure.

Photo by Donald Giannatti on Unsplash

In honour of St George’s day, I decided back in 2012, to test out my Tarot cards as an interviewing tool, see what would happen if I tried to use it as a Translator across Time and Truth.

St George’s Day, April 23rd, is also thought to be the anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare.

Saint George is the patron saint not only of England, but of Ethiopia, Catalonia and Aragon. He was already widely celebrated as a warrior saint, but in 1346 his position was elevated to patron saint of England after his reported heavenly intervention at the English victory at the Battle of Crécy. The French had 12,000 knights and almost numberless men at arms, the English had just 4,000 knights and 30,000 English and Welsh bowmen. These numbers are likely greatly exaggerated, but still give an idea of the relative sizes of the two armies.

St George, a Roman cavalryman of Greek parentage, was born in 280 AD/CE in Cappadocia (Anatolia, in modern Turkey) and died in Lydda, Syria-Palestine in 303, (now Lod in Israel) when he was put to death for his Christian beliefs by order of the Emperor Diocletian. His mother had raised him as a Christian, and as a young man, he was reputed to have smashed idols in pagan temples (rude). Could this be what gave rise to the later legend transmitted by Jacques de Voragine, of the fight against “the dragon?”

George followed a military career like his father, and became a military tribune in the imperial guard. But then the emperor Diocletian decided that the Christians were a threat to his Empire, to state security, and he rekindled the former persecution against Christians, urging all loyal subjects to offer sacrifices to the gods of the empire. This order was especially applied to the military as a gesture that would mark their loyalty to imperial orders. George refused and was reproached for ingratitude. The Emperor had taken a kindly interest in him, based on an earlier friendliness with George’s father. George refused to cooperate, and legend has it that he took advantage of his last days of freedom to distribute his possessions to the poor and free his slaves. Thus prepared, the tribune approached the emperor himself and pleaded the cause of Christians before him.
- " Young man," Diocletian urged him, "think of your future! "
- " I am a Christian," said George, "I neither aspire nor regret anything in this world; nothing can shake my faith."

This was Diocletian’s last offer. George was then taken away, beaten with rods, and then suffered further tortures, which he apparently endured with unbelievable stoicism and endurance before finally having his head cut off.

A Tarot Tale of Saint George

I can’t call this one a true tarot tale. Uh-uh. The Tarot tells no lies, but it stands to reason, factually speaking, there is no validating any findings that do not match up with the recorded facts. A legend may contain grains of fact, while representing the poetic truth of an amalgam of people or myths. There is fact, there s truth and there is poetic truth. As the poet, Kathleen Raine expressed it, ‘Myth is the Truth of Fact, not Fact the Truth of Myth.’

What some call fantastical, or lies, even damned lies, if they don’t apprehend poetic truth, for others is just a case of taking a possibility for a walk, an exercise in exploration vis divination with judgement in abeyance. Let’s suspend judgement just for a moment, as we enter the Tarot’s Imaginarium.

Some of the answers came by literal reading of the cards. Other things just came in from “nowhere”.

George, if I may, if you can hear me? What can you tell us about yourself?
Card: The Six of Swords Rx:

I am the other side of The River. I hear you only faintly. Your words are not my language, and yet I understand you. There must be a translator. I have forgotten some things, but I know I made long journeys over the sea as well as by land. In my dreams I still go looking for frogs amongst the bullrushes in the pebbled stream, near where I lived as a boy. It was good luck to find a frog.

My letters were taught me by an old Persian slave of my parents. He had scarred legs – I never knew how he got those. He knew about numbers and about the stars. I would sit by him, and talk about the stars, and show me maps of the sky.

Photo by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash

They say you killed a dragon. What can you tell us about that? And they say you saved a princess? Cards: The Queen of Cups/Ace Pentacles Rx.

There was something once. They didn’t call it a dragon. A giant eel, one place I stopped off with sone of my men. This monstrous giant eel, attacking fishermen, robbing nets.. They asked if we would help them hunt and kill it, and they were in difficulties, so we went out at night with the fishermen. One guided the boat, I saw the great eel showing silver at the surface, and stuck it with my lance. We knew it was hurt, the way it started thrashing about, and then we just pulled back and waited. A fatal mistake, coming so close to the surface when the moon was so bright. I’d never seen one so huge. They said it killed a girl, a young woman, as she was washing clothes, treading them in the river. But there was another thing happened that might have become a story of a dragon. A battle chariot came down on us. A huge thing with its horse team decked out in the semblance of a beast, with a beast’s head carving. I flung a spear, it went through the spokes of one of the wheels. My farthest throw ever, they said. Maybe that’s the root of the story. That or the eel. I once kept a pine marten for a season, but I don’t imagine that will qualify ( a quiet laugh.)

What was your profession? Card: The King of Swords

This is of course, totally verifiable, but still, typical Tarot, it was the first card I pulled in answer to the question.

Oh, I was ‘miles’, a soldier, I became ‘miles’ after the death of my mother, and I went on to become an officer. A thing to be said for Rome was, it rewarded skill and service, it gave you chances. I wasn’t popular, or perhaps I simply mean, I wasn’t easy and outgoing. I was known for a certain reserve, nothing to do with rank. I was rarely the worse for wear. I laughed at jokes, but I didn’t make many. But I wasn’t unpopular either. I tried hard to be fair, always, didn’t put on airs, and few of them could see further or clearer than I could, or better me with a lance. I had a horse, a beautiful grey mare, Usa, so steady, so brave, I don’t think I could have done it without her

(Reading note: I got this name ‘Usa’ name by ‘hearing’ it. Sometimes insights come this way in a real life reading. I looked it up, and found that ‘Usa’ is not listed as a Roman or Cappadocian name, but it is a Sanskrit name, meaning ‘Dawn’. Suitable then, for a grey mare, and almost certainly known across the Roman Empire. I was astonished to find the name actually existed, I hadn’t come across it before.)

Photo by Philippe Oursel on Unsplash

What else would you like to say, George? Card: The Hierophant Rx

Whatever I said I would do, I did. In my life I had two homes, two peoples, two purses and they were sometimes empty. I was always divided. But it was not in my nature to function divided. I looked at this, or I looked at that, the rest went into the background. I think others besides myself might have paid a heavy price for that. I could not see that at the time. Or if I did, I could not, or would not change it. I did not die in a battle on the field, but in another kind of battle. I remember that I found myself out of step, dangerously so.

Why was that? Card: The World.

It was the way of the times, and the world I lived in.

What do you remember about leaving Life? Cards: Seven of Wands, Ace of Cups.

I can see blows coming at me to know it was not gentle. There must have been pain. And fear. I don’t remember. Then I was looking down from a height, and I knew I had escaped and was free. Little else.

Did you have children?
Card: The Three of Swords Rx and The Three of Wands.

I had a son. His mother was in my household, but she and I were not wedded. I freed her though. He had lately been apprenticed. Tooling of leather, I think. He was enjoying the work. Perhaps he continued to become a craftsman, but what his life path was like afterwards, I can never know. To my sorrow. I did not want to die. I wanted to stay. But not at any price. And that was the price. But who ever knows where the road goes once after we have gone.

Here Ends The Transmission

Until next time

Related articles

• St George’s Day (feelthebest.wordpress.com)