Barbara Walker Tarot - Ten of Swords: Ruin

The divine hero-martyr dies bound to his pillar on a bleak seacoast, attended by the black-clad priestess and her bird of doom. This version is Cu Chulainn, another god-begotten, virgin-born, apotheosized hero, sentenced to his ceremonial death by the Celtic Crone-goddess Macha, Queen of the Dead, also known as Morgan, Morrigan, Mab, or the Banshee. Like the corresponding ten of spades, the card represents a nadir of fortune: evil, desolation, affliction, martyrdom, pain.