Bohemian Gothic Tarot

FOUR OF PENTACLES

Lighter or more conventional meanings

Worrying too much about your material possessions * Saving and investing * Financial meanness, a tendency to miserliness * Becoming too focused on money matters to the exclusion of all else.

Darker, shadow or more hidden meanings

Accumulating wealth at the expense of others - and possibly even damaging yourself in the process * Becoming a miser - and a miserable one * Becoming paranoid about other people trying to take your wealth * Feeling that all your status is determined by what you own * Doing some murky deeds in order to get some material possessions that you covet.

The old lady who we see here is distinctly disturbing. Decked out in splendid jewels and a fine dress, she nevertheless has such a hard and confrontational expression that she looks both unlikable and unapproachable. Stationed in front of the door of an imposing castle, she gives the impression that she is there to guard it and keep people out, not to welcome anybody in. She reminds us in particular of the rich but miserable characters that feature in many of Charles Dickens' stories - there is a touch of both the miser Ebenezer Scrooge and the embittered and locked away Miss Haversham. She may also remind us of the horrendous Madam Crowl, the wizened old "belle dame sans merci" of Le Farm's Madam Crowl's Ghost - who begins as a great beauty but through her own greed and heartless cruelty becomes perverted and horrifying in old age.

There is excess in this picture on this card - this woman wears too much finery and far too much make-up; her lips and nails are both blood-red. The result is impressive but also rather ugly and the beauty spot painted on her cheek looks like the conceit of someone who is self-deluded. Was she once a beauty? Quite possibly, certainly she still has a strong face and fine eyes, but the impression now is of someone who has become hardened in spite of - or more likely because of - the sheer quantity of her riches and possessions.

Sometimes we find it hard to know when enough is really enough. Chasing after money can become a bad habit that we can't break even when it no longer makes any sense and might actually be making our lives miserable.

In Gothic literature, miserliness is a fairly frequent theme, and always associated with misery and xenophobia. The most famous miser of the Gothic is Ebenezer Scrooge of Charles' Dickens' A Christmas Carol, who only mends his ways after being visited - and terrified - by a succession of ghosts. But there are others too, who feature in less well-known stories, such as the subject of Le Fanu's "The Fortunes of Sir Robert Ardagh", a man who has accumulated vast wealth, non of which he spends or enjoys, by selling his soul to the devil in exchange for invincible success in betting on horse racing (a very Irish tale indeed!)

This card reminds us of the potential of riches to corrupt us if we grow to love them too much. In a reading, it asks us to look honestly at either ourselves or the person to whom it might refer and ask if meanness has taken the place of being "careful" with money and if material possessions have become a source of freedom or a type of prison that binds us.

Some further ways to consider this card

Imagine this woman when she was younger. Was she very different? What made her the way she is now?

So, softly, softly I draws the curtain, and there, sure enough, I sid before me, stretched out like the painted lady on the tomb-stean in Lexhoe Church, the famous Dame Crowl, of Applewale House. There she was, dressed out. You never sid the like in they days. Satin and silk, and scarlet and green, and gold and pint lace; by Jen! 'twas a sight! A big powdered wig, half as high as herself, was a-top o' her head, and, wow! - was ever such wrinkles? - and her old baggy throat all powdered white, and her cheeks rouged, and mouse-skin eyebrows, that Mrs. Wyvern used to stick on, and there she lay proud and stark, wi' a pair o' clocked silk hose on, and heels to her shoon as tall as nine-pins. Lawk! But her nose was crooked and thin, and half the whites o' her eyes was open. She used to stand, dressed as she was, gigglin' and dribblin' before the lookin'-glass, wi' a fan in her hand and a big nosegay in her bodice. Her wrinkled little hands was stretched down by her sides, and such long nails, all cut into points, I never sid in my days.
- Sheridan Le Fanu. Madam Crowl's Ghost.