← Encyclopedia of Tarot · lesson 84/121
Knights
The Knights are the mounted rank of the court cards: four riders, one in each suit, each on a horse whose pace says a good deal about its rider. They are the court in motion. Where a Knight appears, readers often see action, pursuit, a journey, a cause taken up — or the suit's quality pushed a little too far.
The rank
If the Page discovers the suit and the Queen and King hold it with mastery, the Knight carries it. Knights are committed and energetic, but their energy points in one direction, and they are not always good at stopping. That gives the rank both its gift — momentum, devotion, courage — and its typical risk: haste, extremes, single-mindedness. Waite remarked of the Knight of Wands that the motion of the horse is a key to the character of its rider, and that is a good way into all four: compare the charging horse of Swords with the plodding one of Pentacles.
Across the four suits
- Knight of Wands — boldness and adventure; travel, a move, a sudden leap.
- Knight of Cups — the romantic messenger; an offer, an invitation, a heart followed.
- Knight of Swords — the charge; argument, decisiveness, speed that can turn reckless.
- Knight of Pentacles — the steady worker; patience, routine, reliability, sometimes inertia.
They make a useful scale of speed, from the fastest (Swords, Wands) to the slowest (Pentacles), with Cups gliding in between.
As people
When Waite chose a significator, he gave the Knight to a man of forty or more and the King to a younger man — an allotment that puzzles readers until they see that his Knights are the Golden Dawn's Kings (below). Modern readers mostly read the rank symbolically: a Knight can be anyone of any age or gender who is pursuing something, or the querent's own drive.
Names in other decks
The Knight is the rank ordinary playing cards lost. Early Italian tarots had four courts — fante, cavallo, regina, re — and when packs were simplified, French cards kept the Queen and dropped the rider, while Spanish and Italian cards kept the rider and dropped the Queen. Tarot kept both. In the Tarot de Marseille the rank is the Cavalier.
The naming then becomes confusing, and it matters when reading older texts. The Golden Dawn called the mounted figure the King, the highest of its court, and called the figure on a throne or in a chariot the Prince. The Rider–Waite–Smith deck kept the traditional names, so its Knight is the Golden Dawn's King. In the Thoth Tarot Crowley renamed the mounted King back to Knight while keeping the Golden Dawn's meaning, so the Thoth court runs Princess, Prince, Queen, Knight — and the Thoth Knight is the senior figure. A Thoth Knight and a Rider–Waite–Smith Knight are therefore the same card in the same place.
The Golden Dawn attribution
In the Golden Dawn scheme the mounted figure is Fire — the first, swiftest, most forceful stage of the suit's force. So:
- Knight of Wands — Fire of Fire, 20° Scorpio to 20° Sagittarius
- Knight of Cups — Fire of Water, 20° Aquarius to 20° Pisces
- Knight of Swords — Fire of Air, 20° Taurus to 20° Gemini
- Knight of Pentacles — Fire of Earth, 20° Leo to 20° Virgo
Each span runs from the last decan of one sign into the next, and the greater part of each falls in a mutable sign — fitting for figures in motion. Some modern authors, keying the elements to the Rider–Waite–Smith names, make the Knights Air and the Kings Fire instead; schools differ, and it is worth knowing which a book follows.
In a reading
A Knight can be a person on the move, an event arriving quickly, or advice to act — or to rein in. Several Knights together are often read as a lot happening at once: comings and goings, quick developments. Reversed, for readers who use reversals, a Knight may show energy misdirected, a plan stalled or a journey delayed.