Minor Arcana · Swords · Air
Knight of Swords
Read to know yourself, not to surrender yourself: relate to the card; never obey it. These are what two traditions wrote, not predictions.
In Waite's words: The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911)
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.
A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: William Rider & Son, 1911), public domain.
In the Golden Dawn's 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.
If ill dignified, deceitful, tyrannical and crafty.
Rules from 20 Degree Taurus to 20 Degree Gemini.
Fire of Air
King of the Sylphs and Sylphides.
Golden Dawn Rank
Book T — Golden Dawn, c. 1888 · the deck's native system (predates this imagery)
RWS Knight of Swords = Golden Dawn Knight of Swords — Fire of Air.
Editorial note · where Book T's figure and the picture differ. The picture is Pamela Colman Smith's (1909); Waite's words are from The Pictorial Key (1911).
Both ride. Book T's Knight is winged, on a brown steed, with the star of the Twins as his crest; Waite's is "riding in full course, as if scattering his enemies". In Book T the mounted figure is the senior court of the suit, the old King (the 1912 printing: "the horsed figures refer to the Yod"); in the picture's deck the Knight ranks below the King.
Correspondences
Rules 21° Taurus – 20° Gemini. As Fire of Air, this court is the fire aspect of a keen and restless suit.
Book T as printed in The Equinox I(8), 1912, public domain (notes in square brackets are Crowley's). The correspondences are this site's compilation from Book T. Open it in the Golden Dawn deck.