Weekly thingy and the Six of Pentacles/The Malachite Casket
I talked about the Malachite Maid way back in the major arcana – she’s woven all through this story, though she never directly appears (except in disguise as the traveler). It’s a long one, so I’m not going to try to summarize the whole thing – you can read it here. The extremely incomplete run down – a malachite miner and his wife have three children, two boys and a girl who is mysteriously beautiful, with black hair and green eyes. When the miner dies, he leaves behind a malachite casket full of amazing gems, but his wife can’t seem to wear them without great discomfort. Their daughter, Tanyushka, though, loves them and feels her father’s warmth when she plays with them. A mysterious woman eventually turns up begging for a place to stay for a few days, teaches Tanyushka silk embroidery, shows her a magical vision of a malachite room in the palace and a woman just like her, but dressed like a tsarina, and then leaves her a button to look at whenever she needs guidance. There’s lots more, but basically all the boys want Tanyushka, she’s not interested in any of them, and eventually she gets one determined bridegroom to bring her to the palace and the malachite room, where instead of agreeing to marry him she melts into the wall and disappears.
For a card about generosity, I thought Tanyushka and the mysterious traveler who teaches her silk embroidery, and shows her her future, and leaves her a magic button as a remembrance was perfect. It’s strongly implied that Tanyushka is in some mysterious way the changeling child of the Malachite Maid, and at the end after she disappears into the wall there are seen to be two identical Mistresses of the Copper Mountain.
Places to buy stuff!
- TEEPUBLIC: mostly t-shirts, a few other products. Watch for sales, when shirts drop from $20 to $14!
- REDBUBBLE: Just, I don’t know, a ton of different stuff. T-shirts are more expensive than Teepublic, but there are a lot more options.
- AMAZON: Home of the Geeky Gals Coloring Book! Daydreams and Whimsies! AND NOW, The Neurotic Owl Compendium!
- ETSY: paper dolls, a knitting bag pattern, and a bunch of vintage dolls of various sorts from my collection
Did I miss something? I think that’s everything.
What’s making me happy this week:
My friends are moving into their new house today and I’m visiting them there tonight, hooray! And I thought when I was at the laundromat this morning that it might be the last time I have to do laundry outside my home, depending how quickly my closing and move-in goes, so that’s an AMAZING thought.
Neurotic Owl 