Reading the Wands in the 1909 Tarot: Sprouting Staffs and the Story of Fire
Wands is the suit whose symbol is a wooden staff. Lay the 14 Wands of the 1909 original side by side and you quickly notice small leaves sprouting from every staff. These are not cut sticks but living wood that is still growing. In this column we look at what keeps showing up in the Wands pictures and follow the story from the Ace to the King.
What appears again and again
- Sprouting staffs: They stand for passion, vitality and possibilities that are not finished yet. How a staff is held tells you the mood of the card.
- Hills and desert: Wands cards often show open hills, dry fields and even pyramids in the distance. Hot, dry land fits the energy of fire.
- The element of fire: Of the four elements, Wands belongs to fire. It deals with the energy that pushes forward: starting things, challenges, work and dreams.
- Salamander patterns: Salamanders appear on the clothes of the Page and Knight and on the King's throne. In old Western lore the salamander was believed to live in fire, so it became the animal of the fire suit.
Ace to Four: the spark catches
In the Ace of Wands, a hand from a cloud offers a leafy staff, the moment an idea you want to pursue first appears. In the Two, a figure on a castle wall holds a small globe and looks out to sea while making plans. In the Three, someone stands at the edge of a cliff watching ships come and go, waiting for first results. In the Four, people raise bouquets beyond four staffs hung with garlands, a short time to celebrate.
Five to Seven: clashing and holding on
By the Five, five young men are tangled together, swinging staffs. It looks less like a real fight and more like a contest of opinions. In the Six, a rider wearing a laurel wreath passes through a crowd to announce a victory. In the Seven, a figure on high ground holds off six staffs rising from below all alone. Look closely and he is wearing two different shoes, which many read as someone who rushed out in a hurry.
Eight to Ten: faster and heavier
The Eight has no people at all, just eight staffs flying across the sky, a moment when things move fast. In the Nine, a man with a bandaged head leans on his staff with a wary look, and the eight staffs behind him stand like a fence. He is tired but has not given up. Finally, in the Ten, someone hugs ten staffs and walks bent under their weight. The spark has grown so big it has become a burden, so this card is often read as a message to choose what to put down.
The four court cards
The Page of Wands stands in open country and gazes up at his staff with curiosity, excited about news or something new to learn. The Knight of Wands rides a horse rearing up on its hind legs, ready to charge off at any moment. The Queen of Wands sits on a throne carved with lions, holding a staff in one hand and a sunflower in the other, with a black cat at her feet. She is warm but clear about her own space. The King of Wands sits on a throne decorated with lions and salamanders, holding his staff, with a small salamander at his feet. He is the leader who turns thoughts into action.
A small exercise for reading Wands
When a Wands card comes up, first look at where the staffs are. If they are in someone's hands, it is something you can move yourself. If they are planted in the ground or fixed to a wall, the matter has already settled into place. If they fly through the sky, it has left your hands and is rolling along fast. If someone hugs an armful, they have taken on too much. Then look at the sky and the land in the background to sense how hot this passion is and how long it might last.
Wands cards often show up when you start a new project at work or feel full of drive. You can read each card's meaning starting from the Ace of Wands, and find more stories about the original art in our original art column. Sources for the images on this page are listed at the bottom.
The 1909 originals
Tap a picture to open its card meaning page.
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Image sources
The images on this page are scans of the first printing (1909 to 1910) of the tarot drawn by Pamela Colman Smith, taken from public domain files on Wikimedia Commons. The original artwork is out of copyright, but later recolored editions may be separate copyrighted works. The card art used elsewhere on Fortune Alley is our own separate design.
