Knight of Swords Tarot Card Meaning and Art Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Designation
About the Deck
Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Pivotal and canonical, this deck defined a new pattern that would be followed up to the present. I made a digitally retouched and painted version of this deck, which I call the "Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck". The cards from that deck, as well as a modern English translation of the romantic English descriptions by Arthur Edward Waite (as appear on the Waite Smith Tarot deck) appear in a cross-referenced format in my book, "A Concise Guide to the Tarot: In Vivid Color"
Provenance
Designed by A.E. Waite and Illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. England, 1911.
Tags
swords-12, knight-of-swords, knight, swords
Description
He is riding in full course, as if scattering his enemies. In the design he is really a prototypical hero of romantic chivalry. He might almost be Galahad, whose sword is swift and sure because he is clean of heart.Meaning of Knight of Swords from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Upright
Skill, bravery, capacity, defence, address, enmity, wrath, war, destruction, opposition, resistance, ruin. There is therefore a sense in which the card signifies death, but it carries this meaning only in its proximity to other cards of fatality.
Reversed
Imprudence, incapacity, extravagance.
According to Many Schools of Thought
Papus's Divinatory Meanings
Young dark man. An enemy. A spy.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Upright
A soldier, man of arms, satellite, stipendiary; heroic action predicted for soldier.
Reversed
Dispute with an imbecile person; for a woman, struggle with a rival, who will be conquered.
S. L. MacGregor Mathers's Divinatory Meanings
Upright
A Soldier, a man whose profession is arms, Skilfulness, Capacity, Address, Promptitude
Reversed
A conceited fool, Ingenuousness, Simplicity.
