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's Key to the Tarot describes the design: "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
Italian packs call the suit bastoni, clubs; the British Museum's catalogue of 1876 lists it among the suit marks of the earliest cards. Papus, who calls it the Knight of Sceptres, reads it as a dark young man, good.
Read next
- Next in Tarot cardsQueen of WandsThe queen of wands in the tarot's Minor Arcana: a queen enthroned, holding a wand in leaf. A. E. Waite read it as a friendly, honourable countrywoman, and success in business.
- The same shape in Chinese radicalsMù 目The character for ‘eye’, and radical 109 of the 214 Kangxi radicals, under which characters for looking and seeing are filed.
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
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from letters and numbers, lines or squares and rectangles.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed September 30, 2026. How we research
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