Eight of Wands in 6 decks
The same card as 6 decks draw it, five and a half centuries apart. What stays the same is the card’s core; what changes is where a reading can find something new. The meanings are written for the Rider–Waite–Smith picture; the descriptions here are of each deck’s own. Not in Oswald Wirth, which has no Eight of Wands card.
Side by side
Choose any two decks and read the pictures against each other.
Pamela Colman Smith, 1909
Eight staffs fly through a clear sky in a tight parallel group, angled downward toward a green landscape with a river and a small house. There are no people in the picture. The staffs are in motion and about to land.
Lequart, Paris, 19th century
Eight staves in two crossing bundles of four, red and yellow, are woven through a large blue lattice dotted with small red diamonds. A red flower with green leaves stands on a stem at the top, and another hangs at the bottom. The numeral VIII is printed at both sides.
Marseille number cards are read through their number and suit; the written meaning here gives the scene the Rider-Waite-Smith card adds.
Rider–Waite–Smith
Pamela Colman Smith, 1909
Eight staffs fly through a clear sky in a tight parallel group, angled downward toward a green landscape with a river and a small house. There are no people in the picture. The staffs are in motion and about to land.
Tarot de Marseille
Lequart, Paris, 19th century
Eight staves in two crossing bundles of four, red and yellow, are woven through a large blue lattice dotted with small red diamonds. A red flower with green leaves stands on a stem at the top, and another hangs at the bottom. The numeral VIII is printed at both sides.
Marseille number cards are read through their number and suit; the written meaning here gives the scene the Rider-Waite-Smith card adds.
Tarot de Viéville
Jacques Viéville, c. 1650
Eight batons bend in four pairs to form a large lozenge around a woven grey lattice. A small flower sits at the top and bottom, and dark leaves pierced by red stems project at the left and right.
Viéville number cards show only their suit symbols; read them through number and suit, with the written meaning as a guide.
Visconti-Sforza
Bonifacio Bembo, c. 1450
Eight blue staves with dark gold ends cross four by four into a diamond lattice, small orange lozenges at each crossing. There is no ribbon. A few blue and red flowers and green leaves sit at the top, bottom and sides of the cream ground within a red border.
In the Visconti-Sforza deck the number cards show only their suit symbols, and the trumps are unnamed and unnumbered.
Sola Busca
c. 1491
A bundle of staves stands in a pale wooden tub bound with two green laurel wreaths and fitted with purple scroll handles. The tub sits on a red lobed base like a flower, and more stave ends show beneath it. The numeral 8 is at the right.
Soimoi
Mike Koz, 2025
A smiling man crowned with a laurel wreath, a tattoo at his neck, stands in a red kimono printed with gold maple-leaf shapes, a bamboo staff resting on his shoulder. Seven green bamboo stakes tied with red and white ribbons stand in a row before him. The scene resembles the Rider-Waite-Smith Six of Wands more than the flying rods of the Eight.