Book T no. 16 · Knave of Swords · Earth of Air
Princess of the Rushing Winds: the Lotus of the Palace of Air
Knave of Swords · The Princess of the Rushing Winds: the Lotus of the Palace of Air
Read to know yourself, not to surrender yourself: relate to the card; never obey it.
Book T (1912)
AN AMAZON figure with waving hair, slighter than the Rose of the Palace of Fire. Her attire is similar. The Feet seem springy, giving the idea of swiftness. Weight changing from one foot to another and body swinging around. She is a mixture of Minerva and Diana: her mantle resembles the AEgis of Minerva. She wears as a crest the head of the Medusa with serpent hair. She holds a sword in one hand; and the other rests upon a small silver altar with grey smoke (no fire) ascending from it. Beneath her feet are white clouds.
Wisdom, strength, acuteness; subtlety in material things: grace and dexterity.
She rules a quadrant of the heavens around Kether.
Earth of Air
Princess and Empress of the Sylphs and Sylphides.
Throne of the Ace of Wands.
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, she is frivolous and cunning.
In Book T's table
No. 16 of Book T's 78 titles · Princess of Swords (the 1912 list calls it the Knave of Swords) · Earth of Air
Correspondences
Rules one quadrant of the heavens around the North Pole (with the Ace). As Earth of Air, this court is the earth 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
A lithe, active figure holds a sword upright in both hands, while in the act of swift walking. He is passing over rugged land, and about his way the clouds are collocated wildly. He is alert and lithe, looking this way and that, as if an expected enemy might appear at any moment. Divinatory Meanings : Authority, overseeing, secret service, vigilance, spying, examination, and the qualities thereto belonging. Reversed : More evil side of these qualities; what is unforeseen, unprepared state; sickness is also intimated.
Picture sets
Book T deck, SVG. PlayfulProcess (line art traced from the AI painting). CC-BY-SA-4.0.
Book T deck, painting. 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.