Knight

Origin

In the Italian and French playing card tradition the second-highest court was the cavaliere or cavalier, a mounted warrior of noble birth between the foot-page and the king. The figure draws on the medieval ideal of chivalry, the ordo equestris that bound nobles to military service and a code of conduct. By the fifteenth century, when the Visconti-Sforza tarots were painted, the cavalier was already an aestheticised figure: armour polished, banner displayed, mount caparisoned. The standard French and English playing card decks dropped the cavalier, retaining only the king, queen and jack, but the tarot kept all four court ranks.

In the Tarot of Marseille each cavalier rides a horse in profile, holding the suit emblem aloft. Pamela Colman Smith's 1909 illustrations gave each Knight a distinctive temperament: the Knight of Wands rears his horse against a desert sky, salamanders embroidered on his cloak; the Knight of Cups rides slowly with his chalice held ceremonially before him; the Knight of Swords charges at full gallop into a stormy wind; the Knight of Pentacles sits motionless on a heavy plough horse, contemplating the field. These images are preserved in the Rider-Waite deck. The Thoth Tarot uses Knight as the highest rank, equating it with the Yod of the divine name.

Meaning and function

The Knight carries three classical meanings: a young adult in motion, a quality of mission energy in yourself, or an event that has begun and will arrive. The Knight of Wands brings travel, a passionate venture, a bold gesture; the Knight of Cups brings romance, a proposal, an artistic offering; the Knight of Swords brings argument, conflict, swift action; the Knight of Pentacles brings the slow steady delivery of work, the long project that completes through perseverance. Each Knight embodies the active, projective face of his suit.

Read as a person, the Knight often describes someone in their twenties or early thirties, energetic, on a path. Read as a part of yourself, the Knight describes the version of you that is leaving the harbour, mounted and committed. The Knight's shadow is excess: the Wands Knight burns out, the Cups Knight romanticises, the Swords Knight cuts pointlessly, the Pentacles Knight grinds without joy. When a Knight appears reversed, the deck may be warning that movement has become forced, ill-considered, or stalled.

In practice

In love readings, a Knight often describes a suitor riding into the situation, especially the romantic Knight of Cups, the classical "knight in shining armour". In professional readings the Knight describes the colleague who is making things happen, the freelance worker traveling between projects, the deal-closer. In a Celtic Cross, a Knight in the near-future position points to swift action; in the obstacle position, to someone whose energy is colliding with yours; in the outcome position, to a phase rather than a final state.

In Rider-Waite readings, attend to the speed of each horse. The Knight of Wands rears, the Knight of Swords charges, the Knight of Cups walks with stately calm, the Knight of Pentacles stands still. These tempos encode the speed at which each kind of mission moves through the world. A daily Card of the Day in a Knight calls you to act today on something you have only been planning. In a Three-Card Spread a Knight in the present position is the most actionable single sign in the deck.

Symbolic depth

In the Golden Dawn system, as elaborated by Crowley in the Thoth Tarot, the Knight corresponds to the Yod of the divine name and to the elemental fire of each suit. The Knight of Wands is fire-of-fire, the pure flame; the Knight of Cups is fire-of-water, the steam; the Knight of Swords is fire-of-air, the lightning; the Knight of Pentacles is fire-of-earth, the slow combustion of metabolism and growth. Each Knight is the suit's most kinetic expression, the moment when the element is most itself.

Mythologically the Knight is the Arthurian quester, the Persian Saoshyant, the Bodhisattva on his white horse, the angelic horseman of the Apocalypse. He is also the Hero of Joseph Campbell's monomyth in the active phases of the journey, between the threshold and the supreme ordeal. Carl Jung saw the Knight as the masculine animus on horseback, the part of the psyche that rides out into the world to fetch back what the conscious self has called for. To work with the four Knights is to understand that mission and mood vary with element. Visit the glossary to follow the rank up to Queen and King.

Also known as

• Cavalier
• Cavaliere
• Prince
• Horseman
• Rider