Knight of Wands: horse and staff on the road

Start with the picture: in armor, but not going to war

Every sentence Waite writes for this card is about motion. He pictures a man traveling with a short wand; the mail he wears does not make this a campaign, and he passes mounds or pyramids on the way. The heaviest line comes last: how the horse moves tells you the rider's character, and Waite reads it as a hurried, rash mood.

Open the full-size diagram

BaZiFlow original Knight of Wands with three labels

On the original RWS card the horse's forelegs are off the ground, almost rearing. The rider wears a helmet with a flame-colored plume and a yellow surcoat marked with dark figures, and raises a long staff with a few leaves on it. The staff rises well above the helmet, longer than "short wand" suggests. At the lower left are sandy hills shaped like pyramids, and the ground is a strip of yellow sand.

What Waite lists: departure, absence, flight, and a new home

Waite's divinatory meanings are: departure, absence, flight, emigration; a dark young man, friendly; change of residence. Not one of these words is about winning or attacking, which agrees with his opening line about the rider not being on a warlike errand. The extras, what other readers say, are brief: a bad card, in some readings alienation; reversed, for a woman, marriage, but probably frustrated.

Departure, absence, flight, emigration. A dark young man, friendly. Change of residence.

The four main words are not the same thing: departure is a direction, absence is the gap left behind, flight carries urgency, and a change of residence is the settling afterward. The reversed words all concern a connection that breaks: rupture, division, interruption, discord.

Galloping horse, short wand, pyramids: who vouches for each

Three items are the easiest to take as settled conclusions, and each comes from a different place:

How to read it: split a departure into leaving, heading and pace

Waite says the horse is the key to the rider, so the most useful question about this card is not "go or stay" but "why so fast". Inside one departure there are three separate things:

1. 1

   What are you leaving?

   Absence and flight in the list are about the space left behind. Write down which piece you are putting down: a place, a habit or a relationship.

2. 2

   Where are you heading?

   A change of residence is the settling after arrival. A departure with no destination has only the "flight" half of the word.

3. 3

   Who set the pace?

   Waite stresses the horse's motion. List the dates, deadlines and other people's pushing, and see which you set yourself and which the horse is carrying you through.

An example: the host of a podcast wants to move the show from an old hosting platform to a new one, and has already uploaded part of the back catalog to the new place. Write it as three rows:

Reversed and neighboring cards: rupture, and two very different knights

The reversed words in the main entry are rupture, division, interruption, discord. Upright speaks of a change of place, reversed of a change of ties: the path is broken off, or the two sides cannot agree. The extras reverse to "for a woman, marriage, but probably frustrated", which is 1910 wording and not read as a prediction about any woman today. If you read reversals, say which entry you follow.