Knight of Wands
The knight of wands in the tarot's Minor Arcana: an armed rider on a journey, a short wand in his hand. A. E. Waite read it as departure, absence, flight and change of residence.
Meaning
Waite describes the card: "He is shewn as if upon a journey, armed with a short wand, and although mailed is not on a warlike errand. He is passing mounds or pyramids."
What does the Knight of Wands mean?
Waite's meanings are "departure, absence, flight, emigration. A dark young man, friendly. Change of residence"; reversed, "rupture, division, interruption, discord". His list of additional meanings adds "A bad card; according to some readings, alienation", and reversed, "for a woman, marriage, but probably frustrated".
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 Knight of Sceptres, reads it as "a dark young man, good".
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