Three of Wands
The three of wands in the tarot's Minor Arcana: a man seen from behind on a cliff edge, watching ships pass over the sea. A. E. Waite read it as established strength, enterprise, trade and discovery.
Meaning
Waite describes the card: "A calm, stately personage, with his back turned, looking from a cliff's edge at ships passing over the sea. Three staves are planted in the ground, and he leans slightly on one of them."
What does the Three of Wands mean?
Waite's meanings are "he symbolizes established strength, enterprise, effort, trade, commerce, discovery; those are his ships, bearing his merchandise"; reversed, "the end of troubles, suspension or cessation of adversity, toil and disappointment". His list of additional meanings adds "A very good card; collaboration will favour enterprise".
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 Three of Sceptres, reads it as "realization of the commencement of 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