Minor Arcana, the Swords
Ace of Swords
In the deck Pamela Colman Smith drew for A. E. Waite in 1909, the Ace of Swords is the first card of the suit of swords. A hand comes out of a cloud gripping an upright sword, whose point passes through a gold crown hung with a leafy sprig and a long green frond, high above a range of low mountains.
What Waite wrote it means (1910)
- Divinatory meanings
Triumph, the excessive degree in everything, conquest, triumph of force. It is a card of great force, in love as well as in hatred. The crown may carry a much higher significance than comes usually within the sphere of fortune-telling.
- Reversed
The same, but the results are disastrous; another account says—conception, childbirth, augmentation, multiplicity.
Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London, 1911), p. 252. Read it in the chapter
A hand issues from a cloud, grasping a sword, the point of which is encircled by a crown.
What's in the picture
- The cloud. A grey cloud full of spiralling curls comes in from the left edge, about halfway down the card.
- The fist. The hand grips the hilt in a tight fist, knuckles toward us. It is bare and white, with no sleeve, and comes straight out of the cloud. Short pale strokes shine around it on the right and below.
- The blade. The sword stands straight up. The blade is pale blue and double-edged, with a wide crossguard above the fist and a round pommel showing below it.
- The crown. Near the point, the blade passes through a gold crown set with red stones. Waite's note says only that the point is “encircled by a crown”.
- The sprig. From the left side of the crown hangs a sprig of small leaves with red berries.
- The frond. From the right side hangs a long green frond, broader than the sprig, like a palm leaf. The frond hangs lower than the sprig, nearly down to the drops.
- The yellow drops. Six small yellow drops float in the air, three on each side of the blade, below the frond and the sprig. They are shaped like little flames or falling petals.
- The mountains. Along the bottom runs a range of low purple mountains with a strip of blue water between them. They are small and far off, so the sword seems to rise high above the land. The rest of the sky is plain grey.
The card in brief
- In the deck
- Card 51 of 78
- Arcana
- Minor Arcana, Swords
- Number
- Ace
- Element (Golden Dawn)
- Air
- Title in Book T
- Root of the Powers of Air
- Drawn by
- Pamela Colman Smith
- Planned by
- Arthur Edward Waite
- Published
- London, William Rider & Son, 1909
- Scan
- Pam-A printing, c. 1910, Wikimedia Commons
In the old books
Book T (1912)
A White Radiating Angelic Hand, issuing from clouds, and grasping the hilt of a sword, which supports a White Radiant Celestial Crown; from which depend, on the right, the olive branch of Peace; and on the left, the palm branch of suffering.
Six Vaus fall from its point. It symbolizes Invoked, as contrasted with Natural Force: for it is the Invocation of the Sword. Raised upward, it invokes the Divine crown of Spiritual Brightness, but reversed it is the Invocation of Demonic Force; and becomes a fearfully evil symbol. It represents, therefore, very great power for good or evil, but invoked; and it also represents whirling Force, and strength through trouble. It is the affirmation of Justice upholding Divine Authority; and it may become the Sword of Wrath, Punishment, and Affliction.
Book T, “A Description of the Cards of the Tarot”, The Equinox I.8 (London, 1912), p. 155. See the source Papus (1892)
Commencement of enmity.
Papus, The Tarot of the Bohemians, tr. A. P. Morton (London, 1892), p. 313. See the source
Before 1909
The older cards and pictures behind this one will be shown here once their licences are checked.
The film
No film for this card yet.
Sources
- Waite: a hand issues from a cloud, grasping a sword, the point of which is encircled by a crown.Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), Part III, Ace of Swords
Around this card
Before and after it in the deck
The same number in the other suits
All the cards of the Swords, or the whole deck.