Knight of Swords
The knight of swords in the tarot's Minor Arcana: a rider charging at full course with his sword raised. A. E. Waite read it as skill, bravery, enmity and war.
Meaning
Waite describes the card: "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."
What does the Knight of Swords mean?
Waite's meanings are "skill, bravery, capacity, defence, address, enmity, wrath, war, destruction, opposition, resistance, ruin. There is therefore a sense in which the card signifies death"; reversed, "imprudence, incapacity, extravagance". His list of additional meanings adds "A soldier, man of arms, satellite, stipendiary; heroic action predicted for soldier", and reversed, "dispute with an imbecile person; for a woman, struggle with a rival, who will be conquered".
In older decks
In Italian packs the suit is spade, swords: the earliest suit marks, the British Museum's catalogue of 1876 records, were coppe, danari, bastoni and spade, "cups, money, clubs, and swords". Papus reads it as "a young, dark man, an enemy; also a spy".
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