Exploring the Knight of Swords

Welcome to Tarot Thursdays! This week we will be exploring the Knight of Swords and how it can be used as a prompt or brainstorming in our writing.

Tarot is an interesting thing. It’s based upon symbolism and metaphors through imagery. With these images the subconscious mind is tapped into through the story provided. Not everyone gets the same thing from a piece of art. Each piece will influence each person in a slightly different way.

Introduction of the Card

The Knight of Swords is card number 61 in the deck, the twelfth card of the Sword Suit, and the second card of Swords’ Court in the Minor Arcana of the Tarot.

Let’s take a look at the following examples of this card below.

Card Examples

Notice the similarities between them and take note of their differences. Do any of these move you more than the others? Take your time and allow these cards to tell you their story.

My Analysis of These Cards

In each of these cards we have various pictures of knights. All of the people are on beautiful white, charging horses. Even the dragon in the Dragon Tarot is in a bold and dynamic pose. They all look like they are dashing off to some grand adventure, don’t they? Something heroic and noble.

Themes of the Card

Each card has a set of keywords associated with it that serve as themes for its image. These keywords will vary somewhat depending on who you ask.

According to the Learning the Tarot website, the keywords associated with the card are:

DIRECT
AUTHORITATIVE
INCISIVE
KNOWLEDGEABLE
LOGICAL

You can learn more about what this site has to say about this card here.

According to the Biddy Tarot website, the keywords associated with the card are:

OPINIONATED
HASTY
ACTION-ORIENTED
COMMUNICATIVE

You can learn more about what this site has to say about this card here.

What this Card Means to Me

Like the rest of the knight cards, this card represent the teenager and the emerging adult in all of us. Here though it embodies both the positive and negative aspects of the intellect as we learn to balance these two energies together.

The energy of this knight isn’t much different from that of the Knight of Wands other than instead of being driven by one’s spirit, you’re driven by one’s mind. Either way the intensity is often the same here. While the Knight of Wands might scald you with his passion, the Knight of Swords is just as likely to give you freezer burn with his. These two are true mirrors of each other. Fire and Ice in a single coin.

The thing to keep in mind with this knight is the single-mindedness of purpose and intent he tends to have when there’s a project or goal rolling. He’s quick to get impatient with those that can’t keep up and is restless whenever he isn’t on task. A fellow like this needs to watch his tongue and pay attention to details so as to not get ahead of himself.

And there’s even a few of these knights that like to think they can juggle more than one project at a time. They can… if they mind themselves and what they’re doing, but they do better when they focus that energy of theirs on one thing at a time. A knight like this should never let their pride in their intellect get the better of them.

And yes… this just so happens to be me when I’m in “project mode” if you haven’t guessed by now.

My key phrase for this card is: WIELDER OF THE MIND.

Music Playlist

In this spirit of all this, these are the songs I have picked out for this card.

The Writing Exercise

This exercise is a free write. Permit yourself to write whatever comes to mind based upon the theme of this card. Choose a keyword or key phrase and run with it to see what you come up with.

I would love it if you linked or pinged back what you wrote so I could see where you went with this.

Happy writing!

Mythic Tarot by Liz Greene (Author), Juliet Sharman-Burke (Author), Tricia Newell (Illustrator) © 1989
Dragon Tarot by Terry Donaldson (Author), Peter Pracownik (Author) © 1996
Universal Tarot by Lo Scarabeo (Author), R. De Angelis (Illustrator), A. E. Waite (Designer) © 2001
Tarot of Dreams by Ciro Marchetti (Author), Lee Bursten (Author) © 2015