I'm a fairly intuitive tarot reader. The longer I read, the more some cards come to have a more significant meaning for me and my understanding of those cards brings depth and nuance to the readings that I do. A teacher told me that once you make a personal connection to a card - relating it to something in your own life or suddenly coming to a more profound understanding of its symbolism - that the card will forever after have that meaning for you when it appears. There are a number of cards in the deck for which this has become true for me. For example, I've written about the Nine of Pentacles and the Queens. But for some reason, I still struggle to have any intuitive feeling for the Knights and the Knaves.

These cards hold different names depending on the deck you are using. In The Fey Tarot which I've been using as my primary deck for about a year now, they are known as Knights and Knaves. The Waite-Rider deck calls them the Knights and the Pages; Crowley referred to his as Princes and Princesses. Whatever their names, these Court cards are generally understood to be youthful and less experienced personifications of their suits, the less mature counterparts to the Queens and Kings, the royal children even.

The Fey Tarot Knight of Chalices

In many decks the Knights are masculine and the Pages/Princesses are generally understood to be feminine, however this is not always the case. I find it interesting that the Fey Tarot doesn't adhere to this standard at all; two of its Knights are female and three of the Knaves are male. (Gender doesn't seem to be as crucial a symbology in the Fey Tarot in general.) The Waite-Rider deck depicts all of the Pages as young boys, and it's easy to see how, influenced as it is by medieval imagery, the idea of a Page as a young man in training who will go on to be a Knight some day lends itself to the ways we generally interpret these two cards. However, many books I've read that cover divinatory meanings of the Waite-Rider Pages tend to analyze them in feminine terms (Introduction to Tarot by Susan Levitt, for example). I have two Celtic-themed decks; one depicts male Knights and Pages and the other depicts Princes and Princesses. There are a lot of artistic decks that follow the Waite-Rider model and depict Pages as male, but many Goddess-themed decks and other contemporary decks depict this Court card as feminine, whether she be a Princess or some other title.

Regardless of the actual gender of the individuals depicted in the cards, I prefer to read the Knights as male and the Knaves/Pages/Princesses as female in order to balance the male/female energies of the Kings and Queens. Occasionally I see Court cards in a reading as representing an actual person, but just as often they represent some aspect of the querent or no particular person at all. In any case, it isn't their gender that makes it difficult for me to read these cards. While I may not directly identify with the Kings, I have no problem reading their energy and meaning in a spread. If my difficulty were one of gender identification, I should be able to read the Knaves/Pages/Princesses and not the Knights. Truth is, its actually easier for me to get an occasional hit from the Knights than it is for me to read their sisters.

Sometimes a Knight in a reading carries the simple meaning that our Western culture has proscribed for him: a Knight in shining armour, the romantic male figure come to rescue the damsel in distress. I often read the Knights as people who are making haste to act within the realm ruled by the suit at hand, often without thought for consequences, a characteristic of youth. But a deeper intuitive meaning usually eludes me when I'm faced with the Knights.

The Fey Tarot Knave of Pentacles

And when it comes to their young sisters at Court, well then I'm at a total loss. I was first taught that the Pages represent a person in a position of learning, and then by another teacher that they represent people with potential to realize something in their lives corresponding to the particular suits. Neither of these explanations has provided much practical guidance when it comes to interpretation in a reading. Is it simply that so many writers and artists who have conceived of the Knaves/Pages/Princesses have taken a different view of who they are that I haven't been able to find a meaning that resonates with me? Or is this some projection of my inability to understand my own young self?

The Fey Tarot book has this to say about the Court cards:

These cards are historically different from the rest of the numerical cards [of the Minor Arcana] as they are illustrated cards that have been in existence since the earliest Renaissance Tarots. When Tarots began to be used for cartomancy (which occurred three centuries after they had been created), the first esoterics paid attention to this difference in design and attributed a very particular role to the 'court cards': they were to represent specific individuals, not just situations, but archetypes and physical people.

Beyond that, this book does not put forth any particular meaning for the Knight and Knave cards except for the specific meaning given for each individual card in this particular deck. It would seem that the description above is good enough for this deck's creators, especially given that the Fey are such unique individuals to start with and the meaning of the cards on which they appear is largely determined by how they are depicted. This is fine if one wants to memorize given meanings or even to interpret based on the images alone, but doesn't offer me much help in my quest to find a more intuitive understanding of the Knights and Knaves in general.

Turning to a somewhat more authoritative voice on the subject, I consulted Rachel Pollack's book, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom, one of my favorite tarot references. In her introduction to the Minor Arcana, Rachel Pollack provides simple meanings for each of the figures of the Court that "derive from the qualities of the cards themselves." The Knights, she says, represent action and responsibility to others. The Pages represent exploration and study. By way of offering a tool for finding deeper meaning in any given card, Rachel Pollack offers the following explanation, which I find particularly useful:

In some situations the suit and the number support each other, in some they conflict, sometimes even producing the opposite of the number's meaning. For example, the unifying theme of Eight is movement. Since Fire also means movement, Wands express this theme very directly. Swords, however, stress conflict. Instead of someone on the move, the Eight of Swords shows a woman whose movement is restricted. The issue remains movement, but now the opposition becomes the focus.

The Waite-Rider Knight of Pentacles

If I extend this analysis to the Court cards, specifically the Knights and the Knaves, there is a glimmer of hope that I might arrive at a place of better understanding. For example, the Knight of Pentacles represents action in the suit associated with the grounded element of Earth. In the Waite-Rider deck, this Knight is the only one whose horse is standing still. Perhaps the Knight of Pentacles represents someone who needs to act but is being inhibited in some way by his or her situation or attachment to the status quo. Looking at him from a more positive perspective, perhaps he is the most responsible of the four Knights, rooted in practicality as he is by the earthy Pentacles, and therefore less likely to act in haste.

Rachel Pollack's interpretation of the Knight of Pentacles seems to bear out my own, saying, "In his best sense he is deeply rooted to the outer world and to simplicity, a quality suggested by the way his horse stands firmly on the ground, with its rider sitting upright." The upright young man doing the responsible thing. She goes on to discuss that the symbolism of this Knight looking beyond and not directly at the Pentacle he holds suggests that "he has lost sight of the source of his strength in life." While I saw the dichotomy between the action of the Knight and the stabile quality of the Pentacles in a slightly different way, I don't think I was too far off in my application of Rachel's tool for reading cards with possibly opposing "numbers" and suits.

How might this way of looking at the Court cards apply to the Knaves/Pages/Princesses? In the suit of Swords, which represents the element of Air and the realm of thought and the mind, the Knave/Page/Princess is the perfect representation of the ideal pursuer of knowledge. I find it more difficult to work out this part of the puzzle with the other elements of Water, Fire and Earth. A simple reading that these cards represent people who want to, should be, or are learning in the intellectual realm of Air, the creative and emotional realm of Water, the energetic and passionate realm of Fire, and the material and natural realm of Earth is just too facile for my taste. There has to be something more.

The Druidcraft Tarot, mentioned above as the Celtic-themed deck that uses Princes and Princesses, interprets the Princesses like this:

The Princesses, sometimes called Pages in other decks, symbolize youthful potential as yet unfulfilled, or projects in their infancy. Sometimes they can indicate actual children or babies, or they may signify a young person, or someone young in spirit, a student, or someone starting out on a new venture. The Princess cards often signal freshness and hope, just as the sunrise heralds the promise of a new day.

This description elaborates on the themes I've already learned to associate with the Knaves/Pages/Princesses, offering additional ways of interpreting the cards that might be helpful with future readings.

The Crowley Thoth Princess of Disks

I also found Tarot.com's interpretation of the Crowley Princess of Disks to be a helpful elaboration on the meanings I have learned to associate with the Knaves/Pages/Princesses:

This card is traditionally entitled the Page, but in some modern decks appears as a Princess. This card's energy has to do with learning about compound interest and abundance. Her attention is focused on learning the natural laws that pertain to natural synergies.

Whether the learning is about growing vegetables, the stock market or culturing new medicines in the lab, this Page wants to understand the underlying mechanism that supports the creation of results and abundance.

You may see this person in the position of the attendant or junior partner, but that is only a current appearance. That demeanor of humility or servitude will soon enough disappear, as her sense of mastery increases. By studying the example of those around her, successful and unsuccessful, she is building a game plan that will lift her from obscurity and make her successful in her own right. She just has to collect the necessary education and experience, which she is doing right now.

The Fey Tarot Knave of Chalices

It is easy to imagine how this description of the Princess of Disks could be extended toward an interpretation of the Knave of Chalices from the Fey Tarot. Having to do with the watery realm of emotion, intuition and creativity, the young Knave holds a chalice filled with water and occupied by a fish. Maybe he's learning the art of divination, or he's exploring his feelings for a new love. At this stage in his development he has chosen to immerse himself in a world of water to learn all that he can and perhaps is taking advice from an expert, represented by the fish. In any case, we trust that he will learn what he needs to take him to the point where he can progress to the role of the Knight, putting his potential into action.

According to its creator, this card tells us that "in youth it is not always possible to distinguish between the emotions that will last and those that will vanish in the morning." It is the nature of youth to be hungry for knowledge and this Knave craves the knowledge of how to deal with his emotions and sentiments. "The fish that emerges from the chalice is an ancient symbol that indicates the materialization of the mind's imaginings." In asking questions of our divinatory tools, we are, in essence asking questions of ourselves.

Again, after consulting an expert, I find that my reading of this card was not far from its intended meaning. And ultimately, to be a truly intuitive reader, it is my understanding of the card that is most important.

So, just as the Knave of Chalices will mature to understand and act upon the nature of his feelings, we who read the tarot will become more adept at interpreting the cards the more we use them and the more we explore the difficult questions about that which we don't understand. Do I have a better grasp of the Knights and Knaves than I did before I set out to write this article? Yes. But only time - and readings - will truly tell.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 8:39 PM