Four of Wands
The four of wands in the tarot's Minor Arcana: four staves hung with a garland, two women raising nosegays, and a manor house beyond. A. E. Waite read it as country life, repose, harmony and prosperity.
Meaning
Waite describes the card: "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."
What does the Four of Wands mean?
Waite's meanings are "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". His list of additional meanings adds "unexpected good fortune", and reversed, "A married woman will have beautiful children".
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 Four of Sceptres, reads it as "obstacles to the enterprise".
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