Book T no. 14 · Queen of Swords · Water of Air
Queen of the Thrones of Air
Queen of Swords · The Queen of the Thrones of Air
Read to know yourself, not to surrender yourself: relate to the card; never obey it.
Book T (1912)
A GRACEFUL woman with wavy, curling hair, like a Queen seated upon a Throne and crowned. Beneath the Throne are grey cumulus clouds. Her general attire is as that of the Queen of Wands, but she wears as a crest a winged child's head. A drawn sword in one hand, and in the other a large, bearded, newly severed head of a man.
Intensely perceptive, keen observation, subtle, quick and confident: often persevering, accurate in superficial things, graceful, fond of dancing and balancing.
Rules from 20 Degree Virgo to 20 Degree Libra.
Water of Air
Queen 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, cruel, sly, deceitful, unreliable, though with a good exterior.
In Book T's table
No. 14 of Book T's 78 titles · Queen of Swords · Water of Air
Correspondences
Rules 20° Virgo – 20° Libra. As Water of Air, this court is the water 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
Her right hand raises the weapon vertically and the hilt rests on an arm of her royal chair; the left hand is extended, the arm raised; her countenance is severe but chastened; it suggests familiarity with sorrow. It does not represent mercy, and, her sword notwithstanding, she is scarcely a symbol of power. Divinatory Meanings : Widowhood, female sadness and embarrassment, absence, sterility, mourning, privation, separation. Reversed : Malice, bigotry, artifice, prudery, bale, deceit.
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.