The physical and emotional nature to which this card is attributed is dark, ardent, lithe, animated, impassioned, noble. He uplifts a flowering wand and wears, like his three correspondences in the remaining suits, what is called a cap of maintenance beneath his crown. He connects with the symbol of the lion, which is emblazoned on the back of his throne.
Divinatory Meanings: dark man, friendly, countryman, generally married, honest and conscientious. Reversed: good, but severe; austere, yet tolerant.
Throughout this suit the wands are always in leaf, as it is a suit of life and animation. Emotionally and otherwise, the queen’s personality corresponds to that of the king, but is more magnetic.
Divinatory meanings: A dark woman or a country woman, friendly, chaste, loving, honorable. If the card beside her signifies a man, she is well disposed towards him; if a woman, she is interested in the querent. Also, a love of money. Reversed: good, economical, obliging, serviceable. also signifies opposition, jealousy, deceit, and infidelity.
He is shown 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.
Divinatory meanings: departure, absence, flight, emigration. a dark young man, friendly. change of residence. Reversed: rupture, division, interruption, discord.
In a scene similar to the former, a young man stands in the act of proclamation. he is unknown but faithful, and his tidings are strange.
Divinatory meanings: dark young man, he will bear favorable testimony concerning him. he is a dangerous rival, if followed by the page of cups. he has the chief qualities of his suit. Reversed: anecdotes, announcements, evil news. also indecision and the instability which usually accompanies it.
A man oppressed by the weight of the ten staves which he is carrying.
Divinatory meanings: a card of many significance, and some of the reading cannot be harmonized. Set aside that which connects it with honor and good faith. It is oppression simply, but it is also fortune, gain, any kind of success of these things. it is also a card of false-seeming, disguise, perfidity. The place which the figure is approaching may suffer from the rods that he carries. Success is stultified if the 9 of swords follows, and if it is a question of a lawsuit, there will be certain loss. Reversed: contrarieties, difficulties, intrigues, and their analogies.
The figure leans upon his staff and has an expectant look, as if awaiting an enemy. behind him are eight other staves erect, in orderly disposition, like a palisade.
Divinatory Meanings: the card signifies strength in opposition. if attacked, he will meet the onslaught boldly. with this main significance there are all its possible adjuncts, including delay, suspension, adjournment. Reversed: obstacles, adversity, calamity.
The card represents motion through the immovable – a flight of wands through an open country.
Divinatory meanings: activity in undertakings, the path of such activity, swiftness, as that of an express messenger; great haste, great hope, speed towards an end which promises assured felicity; that which is on the move, also the arrows of love. Reversed: arrows of jealousy, internal dispute, stings of conscience, quarrels.
A young man on a craggy eminence, brandishing a staff, six other staves are raised towards him from below. Divinatory Meanings: It is a card of valor, for on the surface, six are attacking one, who has, however, the vantage position. On the intellectual plane, it signifies discussion, wordy strife, in business-----negotiations, war of trade, barter, competition. It is further a card of success, for the combatant is on the top and his enemies may be unable to reach him. Reversed: Perplexity, embarrassments, anxiety.
A laureled horseman bears staff adorned with laurel crown; footmen with staves are at his side.
Divinatory Meanings: The card has been so designed that it can cover several significations. On the surface, it is a victor triumphing, but it is also great news, such as might be carried in state by the king’s courier. It is expectation crowned with its own desire, the crown of hope. Reversed: Apprehension, fear – as of a victorious enemy at the gate, treachery, disloyalty, as of gates being opened to the enemy.
A posse of youths are brandishing staves, as if in sport or strife. It is a mimic warfare, and hereto correspond.
Divinatory Meanings: Imitation, for example, sham fight, the strenuous competition and struggle of the search after riches and fortune. Hence some attributions say that it is a card of gold, gain, opulence. Reversed: Trickery, contradiction, litigation, disputes.
From the four great staves planted in the foreground there is a great garland suspended, two female figures uplift nosegays and at their side is a bridge over a moat, leading to an old manorial house.
Divinatory Meanings: They are for once almost on the surface – country life, repose, concord, harmony, prosperity, peace, and the perfected work of these. Reversed: The meaning remains unaltered – increase, felicity, beauty, embellishment.
A clam, stately figure, 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.
Divinatory Meanings: He symbolizes established strength, enterprise, effort, trade, discovery, commerce; those are his ships, bearing his merchandise, which are sailing over the sea. Reversed: The end of troubles, suspension or end of adversity, disappointment, and toil.
A tall man looks from a battlement roof over sea and shore. He holds a globe in his right hand and a staff in his left rests on the battlement another is fixed in a ring. The rose and cross and lily should also be noticed on the left side.
Divinatory Meanings: Between the alternative readings there is no marriage possible, on the one hand, riches, fortune, magnificence. And on the other, physical suffering, disease, chagrin, sadness, mortification a globe. It looks like the malady, the mortification, the sadness of Alexander amidst the grandeur of this world’s wealth. Reversed: Surprise, wonder, enchantment, emotion, trouble, fear.
The waters are beneath, upon which are water lilies. The hand issues from the cloud, holding in its palm the cup, from which four streams are pouring. A dove, bearing in its beak a cross-marked host, descends to place the wafer in the cup – the dew of water is falling on all sides. It is an intimation of that which may lie behind the lesser arcana.
Divinatory Meanings: True heart, joy, contentment, abode, nourishment, abundance, fertility, holy table, felicity.
Reversed: False heart, mutation, instability, revolution.