Rider Waite Smith Tarot Deck

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.

About the Deck

Pivotal and canonical, this deck defined a new pattern that would be followed up to the present.

Provenance

Designed by A.E. Waite and Illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. England, 1911.

Meaning of Knight of Swords from the Rider 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.