Book T no. 13 · Knight of Swords · Fire of Air
Lord of the Wind and the Breezes: the King of the Spirits of Air
Knight of Swords · The Lord of the Wind and the Breezes: the King of the Spirits of Air
Read to know yourself, not to surrender yourself: relate to the card; never obey it.
Book T (1912)
A WINGED Warrior with crowned Winged Helmet, mounted upon a brown steed. His general equipment is as that of the Knight of Wands, but he wears as a crest a winged six-pointed star, similar to those represented on the heads of Castor and Pollux the Dioscuri, the twins Gemini (a part of which constellation is included in his rule). He holds a drawn sword with the sigil of his scale upon its pommel. Beneath his horse's feet are dark-driving stratus clouds.
He is active, clever, subtle, fierce, delicate, courageous, skilful, but inclined to domineer. Also to overvalue small things, unless well dignified.
Rules from 20 Degree Taurus to 20 Degree Gemini.
Fire of Air
King of the Sylphs and Sylphides.
Book T as printed in The Equinox I(8), 1912, public domain (notes in square brackets are Crowley's).
If ill dignified
Book T (1912): its words for the card when it falls ill dignified, set apart from its text
If ill dignified, deceitful, tyrannical and crafty.
In Book T's table
No. 13 of Book T's 78 titles · Knight of Swords · Fire of Air
Correspondences
Rules 20° Taurus – 20° Gemini. As Fire of Air, this court is the fire aspect of a keen and restless suit.
Waite, Pictorial Key (1911)
A. E. Waite, a member of the Golden Dawn, in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London, 1911) · public domain · he describes the Rider-Waite-Smith picture of this card, not Book T's
He is riding in full course, as if scattering his enemies. In the design he is really a prototypical hero of romantic chivalry. He might almost be Galahad, whose sword is swift and sure because he is clean of heart. Divinatory Meanings : Skill, bravery, capacity, defence, address, enmity, wrath, war, destruction, opposition, resistance, ruin. There is therefore a sense in which the card signifies death, but it carries this meaning only in its proximity to other cards of fatality. Reversed : Imprudence, incapacity, extravagance.
Picture sets
Book T deck, SVG. PlayfulProcess (line art traced from the AI painting). CC-BY-SA-4.0.
Book T deck, painting (Oct 8 pilot). AI painting (gemini-2.5-flash-image) from Book T's words, prompt by PlayfulProcess. CC-BY-SA-4.0.
Book T deck, iconography. PlayfulProcess: glyphs drawn for this deck, composed by script (scripts/build_book_t_iconography.py) from the card's own metadata, placed as Book T (1912) places them. CC-BY-SA-4.0.
Book T deck, full imagery. PlayfulProcess: parts drawn for this deck (tarot/book-t/parts, tarot/book-t/glyphs), composed by script (scripts/build_book_t_full_imagery.py) from a spec per card that follows Book T (1912). CC-BY-SA-4.0.
Book T deck, linocut. PlayfulProcess: a linocut printing of the full imagery, composed by script (scripts/build_book_t_linocut.py) from the same spec per card, which follows Book T (1912). CC-BY-SA-4.0.