WANDS. SEVEN.

A young man on a craggy eminence brandishing a staff; six other staves are raised towards him from below.

Divinatory Meanings:
It is a card of valor, for, on the surface, six are attacking one, who has, however, the vantage position. On the intellectual plane, it signifies discussion, wordy strife; in business—negotiations, war of trade, barter, competition. It is further a card of success, for the combatant is on the top and his enemies may be unable to reach him.

Reversed:
Perplexity, embarrassments, anxiety. It is also a caution against indecision.

WANDS. SIX.

A laurelled horseman bears one staff adorned with a laurel crown; footmen with staves are at his side.

Divinatory Meanings:
The card has been so designed that it can cover several significations; on the surface, it is a victor triumphing, but it is also great news, such as might be carried in state by the King's courier; it is expectation crowned with its own desire, the crown of hope, and so forth.

Reversed:
Apprehension, fear, as of a victorious enemy at the gate; treachery, disloyalty, as of gates being opened to the enemy; also indefinite delay.

WANDS. FIVE.

A posse of youths, who are brandishing staves, as if in sport or strife. It is mimic warfare, and hereto correspond the

Divinatory Meanings:
Imitation, as, for example, sham fight, but also the strenuous competition and struggle of the search after riches and fortune. In this sense it connects with the battle of life. Hence some attributions say that it is a card of gold, gain, opulence.

Reversed:
Litigation, disputes, trickery, contradiction.

WANDS. FOUR.

From the four great staves planted in the foreground there is a great garland suspended; two female figures uplift nosegays; at their side is a bridge over a moat, leading to an old manorial house.

Divinatory Meanings:
They are for once almost on the surface—country life, haven of refuge, a species of domestic harvest-home, repose, concord, harmony, prosperity, peace, and the perfected work of these.

Reversed:
The meaning remains unaltered; it is prosperity, increase, felicity, beauty, embellishment.

WANDS. THREE.

A calm, stately personage, with his back turned, looking from a cliff's edge at ships passing over the sea. Three staves are planted in the ground, and he leans slightly on one of them.

Divinatory Meanings:
He symbolizes established strength, enterprise, effort, trade, commerce, discovery; those are his ships, bearing his merchandise, which are sailing over the sea. The card also signifies able co-operation in business, as if the successful merchant prince were looking from his side towards yours with a view to help you.

Reversed:
The end of troubles, suspension or cessation of adversity, toil and disappointment.

WANDS. TWO.

A tall man looks from a battlemented roof over sea and shore; he holds a globe in his right hand, while a staff in his left rests on the battlement; another is fixed in a ring. The Rose and Cross and Lily should be noticed on the left side.

Divinatory Meanings:
Between the alternative readings there is no marriage possible; on the one hand, riches, fortune, magnificence; on the other, physical suffering, disease, chagrin, sadness, mortification. The design gives one suggestion; here is a lord overlooking his dominion and alternately contemplating a globe; it looks like the malady, the mortification, the sadness of Alexander amidst the grandeur of this world's wealth.

Reversed:
Surprise, wonder, enchantment, emotion, trouble, fear.

WANDS. ACE.

A hand issuing from a cloud grasps a stout wand or club.

Divinatory Meanings:
Creation, invention, enterprise, the powers which result in these; principle, beginning, source; birth, family, origin, and in a sense the virility which is behind them; the starting point of enterprises; according to another account, money, fortune, inheritance.

Reversed:
Fall, decadence, ruin, perdition, to perish; also a certain clouded joy.

CUPS. KING.

He holds a short scepter in his left hand and a great cup in his right; his throne is set upon the sea; on one side a ship is riding and on the other a dolphin is leaping. The implicit is that the Sign of the Cup naturally refers to water, which appears in all the court cards.

Divinatory Meanings:
Fair man, man of business, law, or divinity; responsible, disposed to oblige the Querent; also equity, art and science, including those who profess science, law and art; creative intelligence.

Reversed:
Dishonest, double-dealing man; roguery, exaction, injustice, vice, scandal, pillage, considerable loss.

CUPS. QUEEN.

Beautiful, fair, dreamy—as one who sees visions in a cup. This is, however, only one of her aspects; she sees, but she also acts, and her activity feeds her dream.

Divinatory Meanings:
Good, fair woman; honest, devoted woman, who will do service to the Querent; loving intelligence, and hence the gift of vision; success, happiness, pleasure; also wisdom, virtue; a perfect spouse and a good mother.

Reversed:
The accounts vary; good woman; otherwise, distinguished woman but one not to be trusted; perverse woman; vice, dishonor, depravity.

CUPS. KNIGHT.

Graceful, but not warlike; riding quietly, wearing a winged helmet, referring to those higher graces of the imagination which sometimes characterize this card. He too is a dreamer, but the images of the side of sense haunt him in his vision.

Divinatory Meanings:
Arrival, approach—sometimes that of a messenger; advances, proposition, demeanor, invitation, incitement.

Reversed:
Trickery, artifice, subtlety, swindling, duplicity, fraud.

CUPS. PAGE.

A fair, pleasing, somewhat effeminate page, of studious and intent aspect, contemplates a fish rising from a cup to look at him. It is the pictures of the mind taking form.

Divinatory Meanings:
Fair young man, one impelled to render service and with whom the Querent will be connected; a studious youth; news, message; application, reflection, meditation; also these things directed to business.

Reversed:
Taste, inclination, attachment, seduction, deception, artifice.

CUPS. TEN.

Appearance of Cups in a rainbow; it is contemplated in wonder and ecstasy by a man and woman below, evidently husband and wife. His right arm is about her; his left is raised upward; she raises her right arm. The two children dancing near them have not observed the prodigy but are happy after their own manner. There is a home-scene beyond.

Divinatory Meanings:
Contentment, repose of the entire heart; the perfection of that state; also perfection of human love and friendship; if with several picture-cards, a person who is taking charge of the Querent's interests; also the town, village or country inhabited by the Querent.

Reversed:
Repose of the false heart, indignation, violence.

CUPS. NINE.

A goodly personage has feasted to his heart's content, and abundant refreshment of wine is on the arched counter behind him, seeming to indicate that the future is also assured. The picture offers the material side only, but there are other aspects.

Divinatory Meanings:
Concord, contentment, physical bien-être; also victory, success, advantage; satisfaction for the Querent or person for whom the consultation is made.

Reversed:
Truth, loyalty, liberty; but the readings vary and include mistakes, imperfections, etc.

CUPS. EIGHT.

A man of dejected aspect is deserting the cups of his felicity, enterprise, undertaking or previous concern.

Divinatory Meanings:
The card speaks for itself on the surface, but other readings are entirely antithetical—giving joy, mildness, timidity, honor, modesty. In practice, it is usually found that the card shows the decline of a matter, or that a matter which has been thought to be important is really of slight consequence—either for good or evil.

Reversed:
Great joy, happiness, feasting.

CUPS. SEVEN.

Strange chalices of vision, but the images are more especially those of the fantastic spirit.

Divinatory Meanings:
Fairy favors, images of reflection, sentiment, imagination, things seen in the glass of contemplation; some attainment in these degrees, but nothing permanent or substantial is suggested.

Reversed:
Desire, will, determination, project.

CUPS. SIX.

Children in an old garden, their cups filled with flowers.

Divinatory Meanings:
A card of the past and of memories, looking back, as—for example—on childhood; happiness, enjoyment, but coming rather from the past; things that have vanished. Another reading reverses this, giving new relations, new knowledge, new environment, and then the children are disporting in an unfamiliar precinct.

Reversed:
The future, renewal, that which will come to pass presently.

CUPS. FIVE.

A dark, cloaked figure, looking sideways at three prone cups; two others stand upright behind him; a bridge is in the background, leading to a small keep or holding.

Divinatory Meanings:
It is a card of loss, but something remains over; three have been taken, but two are left; it is a card of inheritance, patrimony, transmission, but not corresponding to expectations; with some interpreters it is a card of marriage, but not without bitterness or frustration.

Reversed:
News, alliances, affinity, consanguinity, ancestry, return, false projects.

CUPS. FOUR.

A young man is seated under a tree and contemplates three cups set on the grass before him; an arm issuing from a cloud offers him another cup. His expression notwithstanding is one of discontent with his environment.

Divinatory Meanings:
Weariness, disgust, aversion, imaginary vexations, as if the wine of this world had caused satiety only; another wine, as if a fairy gift, is now offered the wastrel, but he sees no consolation therein. This is also a card of blended pleasure.

Reversed:
Novelty, presage, new instruction, new relations.

CUPS. THREE.

Maidens in a garden-ground with cups uplifted, as if pledging one another.

Divinatory Meanings:
The conclusion of any matter in plenty, perfection and merriment; happy issue, victory, fulfilment, solace, healing.

Reversed:
Expedition, dispatch, achievement, end. It signifies also the side of excess in physical

CUPS. TWO.

A youth and maiden are pledging one another, and above their cups rises the Caduceus of Hermes, between the great wings of which there appears a lion's head. It is a variant of a sign which is found in a few old examples of this card. Some curious emblematical meanings are attached to it, but they do not concern us in this place.

Divinatory Meanings:
Love, passion, friendship, affinity, union, concord, sympathy, the inter-relation of the sexes, and—as a suggestion apart from all offices of divination—that desire which is not in Nature, but by which Nature is sanctified.

CUPS. ACE.

The waters are beneath, and thereon are water-lilies; the hand issues from the cloud, holding in its palm the cup, from which four streams are pouring; a dove, bearing in its bill a cross-marked Host, descends to place the Wafer in the Cup; the dew of water is falling on all sides. It is an intimation of that which may lie behind the Lesser Arcana.

Divinatory Meanings:
House of the true heart, joy, content, abode, nourishment, abundance, fertility; Holy Table, felicity hereof.

Reversed:
House of the false heart, mutation, instability, revolution.

SWORDS. KING.

He sits in judgment, holding the unsheathed sign of his suit. He recalls, of course, the conventional Symbol of Justice in the Trumps Major, and he may represent this virtue, but he is rather the power of life and death, in virtue of his office.

Divinatory Meanings:
Whatsoever arises out of the idea of judgment and all its connections—power, command, authority, militant intelligence, law, offices of the crown, and so forth.

Reversed:
Cruelty, perversity, barbarity, perfidy, evil intention.

SWORDS. QUEEN.

Her right hand raises the weapon vertically and the hilt rests on an arm of her royal chair; the left hand is extended, the arm raised; her countenance is severe but chastened; it suggests familiarity with sorrow. It does not represent mercy, and, her sword notwithstanding, she is scarcely a symbol of power.

Divinatory Meanings:
Widowhood, female sadness and embarrassment, absence, sterility, mourning, privation, separation.

Reversed:
Malice, bigotry, artifice, prudery, bale, deceit.

SWORDS. KNIGHT.

He is riding in full course, as if scattering his enemies. In the design he is really a proto-typical hero of romantic chivalry. He might almost be Galahad, whose sword is swift and sure because he is clean of heart.

Divinatory Meanings:
Skill, bravery, capacity, defense, 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.

SWORDS. PAGE.

A lithe, active figure holds a sword upright in both hands, while in the act of swift walking. He is passing over rugged land, and about his way the clouds are collocated wildly. He is alert and lithe, looking this way and that, as if an expected enemy might appear at any moment.

Divinatory Meanings:
Authority, overseeing, secret service, vigilance, spying, examination, and the qualities thereto belonging.

Reversed:
More evil side of these qualities; what is unforeseen, unprepared state; sickness is also intimated.

SWORDS. TEN.

A prostrate figure, pierced by all the swords belonging to the card.

Divinatory Meanings:
Whatsoever is intimated by the design; also pain, affliction, tears, sadness, desolation. It is not especially a card of violent death.

Reversed:
Advantage, profit, success, favor, but none of these are permanent; also power and authority.

SWORDS. NINE.

One seated on her couch in lamentation, with the swords over her. She is as one who knows no sorrow which is like unto hers. It is a card of utter desolation.

Divinatory Meanings:
Death, failure, miscarriage, delay, deception, disappointment, despair.

Reversed:
Imprisonment, suspicion, doubt, reasonable fear, shame.

SWORDS. EIGHT.

A woman, bound and hoodwinked, with the swords of the card about her. Yet it is rather a card of temporary durance than of irretrievable bondage.

Divinatory Meanings:
Bad news, violent chagrin, crisis, censure, power in trammels, conflict, calumny; also sickness.

Reversed:
Disquiet, difficulty, opposition, accident, treachery; what is unforeseen; fatality.

SWORDS. SEVEN.

A man in the act of carrying away five swords rapidly; the two others of the card remain stuck in the ground. A camp, is close at hand.

Divinatory Meanings:
Design, attempt, wish, hope, confidence; also quarrelling, a plan that may fail, annoyance. The design is uncertain in its import, because the significations are widely at variance with each other.

Reversed:
Good advice, counsel, instruction, slander, babbling.

SWORDS. SIX.

A ferryman carrying passengers in his punt to the further shore. The course is smooth, and seeing that the freight is light, it may be noted that the work is not beyond his strength.

Divinatory Meanings:
Journey by water, route, way, envoy, commissionary, expedient.

Reversed:
Declaration, confession, publicity; one account says that it is a proposal of love.

SWORDS. FIVE.

A disdainful man looks after two retreating and dejected figures. Their swords lie upon the ground. He carries two others on his left shoulder, and a third sword is in his right hand, point to earth. He is the master in possession of the field.

Divinatory Meanings:
Degradation, destruction, revocation, infamy, dishonor, loss, with the variants and analogues of these.

Reversed:
The same; burial and obsequies.

SWORDS. FOUR.

The effigy of a knight in the attitude of prayer, at full length upon his tomb.

Divinatory Meanings:
Vigilance, retreat, solitude, hermit's repose, exile, tomb and coffin. It is these last that have suggested the design.

Reversed:
Wise administration, circumspection, economy, avarice, precaution, testament.

SWORDS. THREE.

Three swords piercing a heart; cloud and rain behind.

Divinatory Meanings:
Removal, absence, delay, division, rupture, dispersion, and all that the design signifies naturally, being too simple and obvious to call for specific enumeration.

Reversed:
Mental alienation, error, loss, distraction, disorder, confusion.

SWORDS. TWO.

A hoodwinked female figure balances two swords upon her shoulders.

Divinatory Meanings:
Conformity and the equipoise which it suggests, courage, friendship, concord in a state of arms; another reading gives tenderness, affection, intimacy. The suggestion of harmony and other favorable readings must be considered in a qualified manner, as Swords generally are not symbolical of beneficent forces in human affairs.

Reversed:
Imposture, falsehood, duplicity, disloyalty.

SWORDS. ACE.

A hand issues from a cloud, grasping a sword, the point of which is encircled by a crown.

Divinatory Meanings:
Triumph, the excessive degree in everything, conquest, triumph of force. It is a card of great force, in love as well as in hatred. The crown may carry a much higher significance than comes usually within the sphere of fortune-telling.

Reversed:
The same, but the results are disastrous; another account says—conception—childbirth, augmentation, multiplicity.

PENTACLES. KING.

The face of this figure is dark, suggesting courage, and the bull's head should be noted as a recurrent symbol on the throne. The sign of this suit is represented throughout as engraved with the pentigram, typifying the correspondence of the four elements in human nature and that by which they may be governed. In old Tarot packs this suit represented money. The consensus of divinatory meanings is on the side of change, as the cards do not deal especially with questions of money.

Divinatory Meanings:
Valor, intelligence, business, mathematical gifts, and success in these paths.

Reversed:
Vice, weakness, perversity, peril.

PENTACLES. QUEEN.

The face suggests that of a dark woman, whose qualities might be summed up in the idea of greatness of soul; she has also the serious cast of intelligence; she contemplates her symbol and may see worlds therein. Divinatory Meanings:
Opulence, generosity, magnificence, security, liberty. Reversed:
Evil, suspicion, suspense, fear, mistrust.

PENTACLES. KNIGHT.

He rides a slow, enduring, heavy horse, to which his own aspect corresponds. He exhibits his symbol, but does not look therein.

Divinatory Meanings:
Utility, serviceableness, interest, responsibility, rectitude—all on the normal and external plane.

Reversed:
Inertia, idleness, repose of that kind, stagnation; also placidity, discouragement, carelessness.

PENTACLES. PAGE.

A youthful figure, looking intently at the pentacle which hovers over his raised hands. He moves slowly, insensible of that which is about him.

Divinatory Meanings:
Application, study, scholarship, reflection; another reading says news, messages and the bringer thereof; also rule, management.

Reversed:
Prodigality, dissipation, liberality, luxury, unfavorable news.

PENTACLES. TEN.

A man and woman beneath an archway which gives entrance to a house and domain. They are accompanied by a child, who looks curiously at two dogs accosting an ancient personage seated in the foreground. The child's hand is on one of them.

Divinatory Meanings:
Gain, riches; family matters, archives, extraction, the abode of a family.

Reversed:
Chance, fatality, loss, robbery, games of hazard; sometimes gift, dowry, pension.

PENTACLES. NINE.

A woman, with a bird upon her wrist, stands amidst a great abundance of grape-vines in the garden of a manorial house. It is a wide domain, suggesting plenty in all things. Possibly it is her own possession and testifies to material well-being.

Divinatory Meanings:
Prudence, safety, success, accomplishment, certitude, discernment.

Reversed:
Roguery, deception, voided project, bad faith.

PENTACLES. EIGHT.

An artist in stone at his work, which he exhibits in the form of trophies.

Divinatory Meanings:
Work, employment, commission, craftsmanship, skill in craft and business, perhaps in the preparatory stage.

Reversed:
Voided ambition, vanity, cupidity, exaction, usury. It may also signify the possession of skill, in the sense of the ingenious mind turned to cunning and intrigue.

PENTACLES. SEVEN.

A young man, leaning on his staff, looks intently at seven pentacles attached to a clump of greenery on his right; one would say that these were his treasures and that his heart was there.

Divinatory Meanings:
These are exceedingly contradictory; in the main, it is a card of money, business, barter; but one reading gives altercation, quarrel—and another innocence, ingenuity, purgation.

Reversed:
Cause for anxiety regarding money which it may be proposed to lend.

PENTACLES. SIX.

A person in the guise of a merchant weighs money in a pair of scales and distributes it to the needy and distressed. It is a testimony to his own success in life, as well as his goodness of heart.

Divinatory Meanings:
Presents, gifts, gratification; another account says attention, vigilance; now is the accepted time, present prosperity, etc.

Reversed:
Desire, cupidity, envy, jealousy, illusion.

PENTACLES. FIVE.

Two mendicants in a snowstorm pass a lighted casement.

Divinatory Meanings:
The card foretells material trouble above all, whether in the form illustrated—that is, destitution—or otherwise. For some cartomancists, it is a card of love and lovers—wife, husband, friend, mistress; also concordance, affinities. These alternatives cannot be harmonized.

Reversed:
Disorder, chaos, ruin, discord, profligacy.

PENTACLES. FOUR.

A crowned figure, having a pentacle over his crown, clasps another with hands and arms; two pentacles are under his feet. He holds to that which he has.

Divinatory Meanings:
The surety of possessions, cleaving to that which one has, gift, legacy, inheritance.

Reversed:
Suspense, delay, opposition.

PENTACLES. THREE.

A sculptor at his work in a monastery. Compare the design which illustrates the Eight of Pentacles. The apprentice or amateur therein has received his reward and is now at work in earnest.

Divinatory Meanings:
Métier, trade, skilled labor; usually, however, regarded as a card of nobility, aristocracy, renown, glory.

Reversed:
Mediocrity, in work and otherwise, puerility, pettiness, weakness.

PENTACLES. TWO.

A young man, in the act of dancing, has a pentacle in either hand, and they are joined by that endless cord which is like the number 8 reversed.

Divinatory Meanings:
On the one hand it is represented as a card of gaiety, recreation and its connections, which is the subject of the design; but it is read also as news and messages in writing, as obstacles, agitation, trouble, embroilment.

Reversed:
Enforced gaiety, simulated enjoyment, literal sense, handwriting, composition, letters of exchange.

PENTACLES. ACE.

A hand—issuing, as usual, from a cloud—holds up a pentacle.

Divinatory Meanings:
Perfect contentment, felicity, ecstasy; also speedy intelligence; gold.

Reversed:
The evil side of wealth, bad intelligence; also great riches. In any case it shows prosperity, comfortable material conditions, but whether these are of advantage to the possessor will depend on whether the card is reversed or not.