Five of Wands
The five of wands in the tarot's Minor Arcana: a group of youths brandishing staves as if in sport or strife. A. E. Waite read it as imitation, as in a sham fight, and the struggle for riches.
Meaning
Waite describes the card: "A posse of youths, who are brandishing staves, as if in sport or strife. It is mimic warfare, and hereto correspond the"
What does the Five of Wands mean?
Waite's meanings are "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"; reversed, "litigation, disputes, trickery, contradiction". His list of additional meanings adds "success in financial speculation", and reversed, "quarrels may be turned to advantage".
In older decks
In Italian packs the suit is bastoni, clubs: the earliest suit marks, the British Museum's catalogue of 1876 records, were coppe, danari, bastoni and spade, "cups, money, clubs, and swords". Papus, who calls it the Five of Sceptres, reads it as "opposition to the obstacles; victory after surmounting them".
See also
The Fool, The Magician, The High Priestess, The Empress, The Emperor, The Hierophant.
Sources
- The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, by A. E. Waite, William Rider & Son, London, 1910 (the sacred-texts.com transcription, on the Internet Archive), The Lesser Arcana; Some Additional Meanings of the Lesser Arcana
- The Tarot of the Bohemians, by Papus, Chapman & Hall, London, 1896, translated by A. P. Morton (scan on the Internet Archive), The Divining Tarot, second lesson: the minor arcana
- A Descriptive Catalogue of Playing and Other Cards in the British Museum, by W. H. Willshire, Trustees of the British Museum, London, 1876 (scan on the Internet Archive), General history: the marks of the suits
Last reviewed September 28, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research