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Friday, April 9, 2021

Tarot Tales: H is for the Hanged Man

Welcome to the 2021 A to Z Blogging Challenge! My theme this year is Tarot Tales. I am making a selection of folktales, legends, and other traditional stories that correspond to tarot cards. Storytelling and tarot go well together. Do other stories come to mind? Let me know in the comments!


The card: The Hanged Man

Meanings: The Hanged Man symbolizes putting things on hold, surrendering to inactivity, letting go, taking your time. It is a voluntary sacrifice to see new points of view, reevaluate our perspectives, giving up trying to control things around us. The Hanged Man is not bound or trapped; he is reflecting, waiting, regrouping, and going with the flow. 

Selection process: The Hanged Man is often related to Odin or Jesus Christ, as mythical figures who voluntary hung from a tree (cross) and suffered a sacrifice in order to gain wisdom / salvation. Once again, I wanted to dig deeper. I wanted to find a story that deals with patience, voluntary release, and new perspectives.

The story: Lei-lehua  (Hoamakeikekula)

Origin: Hawaii

Summary:
Lei-lehua is a beautiful girl who is raised by her grandmother after the old woman finds her thrown out with the trash. When she is twenty years old, she gets lost in the forest, and a bird leads her to a prince's house. The prince wants to marry her, but Lei-lehua asks him to give her time to consider his proposal, and see if she loves him. While she lives in his mother's house, she repeatedly sees a handsome warrior in her dreams, a man who calls out to her. She falls in love with the dream, and sets out into the wilderness to find him.
After lots of wandering and sorrow (because of which she earns the name Hoamakeikekula, Companion in Suffering in the Glade), Lei-lehua finally gives up the futile search, climbs a tree, wraps herself in ie-ie vines, and waits for something to happen. Eventually she is found by a king's servant who takes her down, and introduces her to his lord - who turns out to be Pu'u-o-nale, the man from her dream. 

Sources & notes: You can read the story online in this book, or here, or here, or here.

Runner-ups: I was also considering the tale of the Wooden Sword because it talks about not trying to control the future, and finding a way to move forward whatever happens. (It's a great anti-anxiety folktale, I collected some of those here.)

Have you ever had a dream that came true? Or a dream you just could not shake?

12 comments:

  1. This would be a hard one for me. I love trying to control all the variables although I also love the idea of stepping back and getting another perspective. I wonder if there is a half-hanged man card? Weekends In Maine

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  2. Oh, I know very little about Tarot, but I have always thought the Hanged Man means death. Hmm, I like much better your definition, and the tale too!
    Quilting Patchwork & Appliqué

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  3. Wonderful story of letting go of control. Falling in love with a dream -- loved it.
    Wouldn't have ever seen the 'Hanged Man' in this light. Thank you.

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  4. That's what we need to do! Climb a tree and just wait for something to happen! I've been doing things wrong all along!
    I have a favorite book where a young girl (12 I think) keeps getting the hanged man. She is told over and over it isn't a bad thing, but she won't believe it. She says something about it not looking good for him, hanging there upside down. Until reading that book I would have thought he was a negative card. Interesting he's associated with Jesus and Odin. Then that leads my mind into American Gods, the book of course!

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  5. I just thought it was a kid's game! Not so much dreams I couldn't shake, but some nightmares!
    https://iainkellywriting.com/2021/04/09/the-state-trilogy-a-z-guide-h/

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  6. I think the hanged man is the card that represents the last year for most of us - life being on hold.

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  7. That seems like my card. I often surrender to inactivity, not as much a sacrifice for anyone's sake but rather going with the flow and seeing what happens.

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  8. Taking my time and listening to other points of view are two ongoing works in progress for me. I like the symbols of the Hangman's Card. Also, I am always eager to learn many legends of Hawaii and you are introducing me to more today. Aloha.
    https://gail-baugniet.blogspot.com
    H is for Hawaiian hibiscus

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  9. I used to have this reoccurring nightmare from the time I was in high school on through out college and grad school. I called it my "very haunted house" dream.
    In the dream there was this large manor house full of ghosts. The worse ones were in the attic and in the sub-basement. In the attic was the body of the old woman haunting the manor. She was hidden in a trunk. In my dream she had gotten into the trunk to hid from something, but the top closed and locked, trapping her inside.
    She died in that trunk and her ghost haunted the whole house.
    Well this went on for years.
    One night I had the dream/nightmare, but now I went to attic like I always did and it was all cleared out. My wife was standing in the middle with broom. I asked her what she had done and she said in her normal manner of fact tone "I cleaned it."

    I never had that nightmare again.

    I have since turned the whole thing into a book I put out a while back.

    --
    Tim Brannan, The Other Side: 2021: The A to Z of Monsters

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    Replies
    1. This is fascinating, because the "house haunted by someone who hid in a trunk and the id locked on them" is actually a recurring folklore trope too.

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  10. Love this topic. I just ordered a replacement set of cards so this comes in handy. I'm not skilled at readings or anything, I just enjoy the stories. Thanks for visiting and good luck in the rest of the challenge. Stephanie

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  11. If all my dreams made me hang from trees, I'd never get anything done!

    Ronel visiting for the A-Z Challenge with an A-Z of Faerie: Half-Mortals in Folklore

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