Knight of Swords 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 Knight of Swords card.
Side by side
Choose any two decks and read the pictures against each other.
Pamela Colman Smith, 1909
An armoured knight on a grey horse gallops headlong with sword raised, leaning so far forward he is almost parallel to the ground. The horse's mouth is open and its eyes wide. Behind them the trees bend and the clouds tear in a hard wind.
Lequart, Paris, 19th century
An armoured rider in a yellow-edged helmet with a red crest holds a sword diagonally across his horse's neck. His grey horse lifts its forelegs high, wearing green straps and a blue caparison with a red and yellow saddle cloth. Green and yellow ground lies below. Titled CAVALIER D'ÉPÉE.
Rider–Waite–Smith
Pamela Colman Smith, 1909
An armoured knight on a grey horse gallops headlong with sword raised, leaning so far forward he is almost parallel to the ground. The horse's mouth is open and its eyes wide. Behind them the trees bend and the clouds tear in a hard wind.
Tarot de Marseille
Lequart, Paris, 19th century
An armoured rider in a yellow-edged helmet with a red crest holds a sword diagonally across his horse's neck. His grey horse lifts its forelegs high, wearing green straps and a blue caparison with a red and yellow saddle cloth. Green and yellow ground lies below. Titled CAVALIER D'ÉPÉE.
Tarot de Viéville
Jacques Viéville, c. 1650
A rider in a grey cap and yellow armour with a beast-head shoulder piece sits on a pink horse moving to the right. He holds a sword raised before him, and the horse wears a plume and a red caparison edged with yellow tassels.
Visconti-Sforza
Bonifacio Bembo, c. 1450
A fair-haired knight in dark armour, a cream cloak at his back, rides to the left with an upright sword in his right hand. His dark horse wears a bridle with a green band and a caparison patterned with roundels and a black shield. Faint green plumes curve above him against a dark tooled ground over worn green grass.
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 bearded rider on a dark horse raises a long sword over his shoulder, his head bowed, a red scabbard hanging at his side and a blue cloth at his hip. A bare tree stands behind. The name at the top reads AMONE, partly hidden by his raised fist, and 12 is at the left.
Soimoi
Mike Koz, 2025
A young man with a headband and topknot, in dark blue, gallops on a dappled grey horse across a grassy slope, swinging a sword high above his head. Swirls of turquoise wind stream across the sky behind the blade. A small tanuki runs beneath the horse, bamboo frames the right side, and red and yellow leaves blow over the hills.