Editor’s Note: If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article tells you how to use the spread. You can visit Sarah’s website here. –efc
By Sarah Taylor
The Knight of Pentacles, jaw set and resolute, looks to a place beyond the right-hand edge of the card. His horse is at rest, its ears turned backwards, waiting for a command from its master. In the Knight’s gloved right hand sits a pentacle. Is the Knight extending it to someone? Or is he simply holding it up for examination? I can’t quite decide whether the movement of his hand is enough to suggest an offering; or… something else.
The Knight’s expression is purposeful and serious, and while his arm is held forward, the rest of his body is tilted slightly backwards, away from the point on which he is focusing. Do you feel a tension between the extension of the arm, and the way he is set back in the saddle? What is it suggesting to us? This, perhaps:
Whereas the Page in the previous card of the suit is a romantic soul, his pentacle the all-consuming object of his desire (he holds it aloft, and it seems that nothing can draw his attention away from it), the Knight is learning that the desire of the lover can get you into all kinds of trouble. He is a warrior. He has almost certainly waged war over his pentacle — the conquest of ‘things’ and the need for power that have justified so many of our human battles. Sometimes a warrior such as he comes to a point where it is worth asking a few questions:
What does power over something mean? What rights can he claim over something that was ultimately divinely given (in the Ace)? What is the responsibility of the possessor?
Perhaps the Knight is beginning to understand the notion of acting in service to something greater than he is. From the need to possess of the new lover (the Page), the Knight has reached the point of detachment. He doesn’t seem to be entirely comfortable with the notion yet — I get the impression there is an air of “What? I’ve fought this hard to find out that it wasn’t really mine to begin with!” about him. But there is a sense of a transition into that understanding.
The Knight is richly clothed, as is his horse. A red cloak almost covers the armour on his upper body. That cloak is seen again — this time without armour — on the Queen in the next card. Red is the colour of blood, of life; and of authority. The Knight is donning the mantle of authority. But it is an authority that puts the need to fight in its proper place: battle as a necessity, not a hot-headed pursuit into the ‘rights of ownership’. The King wears armour, but it is almost wholly covered by a gown that is covered in grapes. He will fight if he needs to… but only if he needs to. He is a protector, not an aggressor. The Knight is showing signs of that shift in power and attitude.
The fruit, flowers and leaves that adorn and surround the King are beginning to issue from the Knight’s helmet — transforming a war-like object into one that is tempered by a different facet of humanity: the desire to nurture. Similarly, there is a sprig in the browband of his mount’s bridle. Horses were ridden into battle; but they were also used in more peaceful pursuits, such as farming. This is suggested by the ploughed fields that run across the bottom of the picture.
So the Knight has come to a resting point. Animation is suspended. The fighting is over, and the visor on his helmet is up. He can see clearly ahead of him. The pentacle is no longer completely his. In one gesture, he is relinquishing complete possession.
The Knight of Pentacles speaks of those moments in our lives when we realise that we are custodians rather than owners of the world that surrounds us; and that it is by working in harmony with it that we reap the greatest rewards. It is not a moral standpoint, but one that simply takes into account the efficiency of operating and working with, and within, the laws of nature. All things will be brought into balance — an idea first espoused in the Two of Pentacles. That balance has its fullest expression in the Queen and King of Pentacles, who demonstrate what it is to be truly wealthy.
I decided I should check the Book of Thoth for more descriptions of the Knight of Pentacles. Of course Crowley has knights and princes instead of kings and knights, so the appropriate card to compare is the Prince of Disks.
He says that the Prince is air of earth, earth made intelligible. Oh check this out, this is a nice enhancement of my remarks about him watching over the fields, “..it is his function to bring forth from the material of the element [earth] that vegetation which is the sustenance of the Spirit itself.”
I think the bit about how people react to him “entirely upon their own temperaments” is about the knight’s placid personality. Crowley says he is imperturbable and mostly emotionless (unless driven to anger) so I think people overlay their own feelings on him, since he doesn’t really project any feelings of his own. Crowley doesn’t really explain that bit very clearly. Well, you can find the Book of Thoth in Google Books, if you want a little extra reading material on these cards.
I couldn’t find any specific symbolism for the horse’s forelock adornment with oak leaves. But I like awordedgewise’s interpretation. It works for me. The Knight is about “slow and steady wins the race.” That is the Knight’s practical side.
BTW, sorry I couldn’t contribute more than a short quip in the past few weeks. I have been working day and night and barely had time for even a quip. And oh you covered all the 2s and 3s, there is so much going on there. Oh well.
yes…acorn into tree ….methinks…the fields as Charles described them and the trees representing what can come of long term vigil and care…he doesnot wear wheat or another crop that will be cut down – it is for the long run – the oak. that the horse wears them as a crown creates an equality between knight and beast as they work together to tend – in an overseer capacity – the continued cycles of growth……some may see this overlord as benefactor, some may see as rogue who serves to take, but that would depend on the circumstances and the interpretor.
well, that’s what I’m getting. good stuff all.
thanks.
Thank you, Charles – that is something I will definitely add to my Knight of Pentacles repository. I wonder why Crowley said that of this Knight, specifically?
aword, your reference made me think of the phrase “mighty oaks from little acorns grow” – the seed of something beautiful and enduring, and steady.
Fe – your phrase “simple yet complicated” struck me, because that is how I felt the Knight to be: at first the card seemed to have no depth, but it was there; it required a little more time and patience … a bit like waiting for an acorn to grow into an oak, in fact!
Thank you ! *wink
Thanks for another interesting and enlightening discussion Sarah and Charles.
I enjoyed this small discussion of symbolism of the Oak here:
http://www.icons.org.uk/theicons/collection/oak-tree/features/the-symbolic-oak
Seems to me there are two stately oaks at the edge of the furrowed fields atop the crest.
Nice.
Thx.
Sarah and Charles:
I love your dialogue on the cards and I absorb it like a sponge.
I have often felt the Pentacles people – earth signs mainly – are “WYSIWYG” – “What You See is What You Get”, and hopefully the gettin’ is good.
That holds true to me particularly for this knight, who has come up as significator representing an actual friend of mine. Simple yet highly complicated. Reticent but full. Someone who actually would rather show you by doing rather than talk about it.
Do I have that right?
It is interesting how you described the knight holding the pentacle in a way that you can’t quite tell whether he is extending it to someone, or holding it for himself so others can see it.
I puzzled over the Knight of Pentacles for many years, back when I was younger and it was my significator. I think I only came to understand it recently, when I read this little quip from Crowley, “The reaction of others to him will depend almost entirely upon their own temperaments.” If you are generous, you will see him extending his hand. If you are selfish, you will see it as held for himself. Perhaps if you are detached observer, you can see it both ways.
This card has some lovely symbolism. I always look at the background. The gently undulating brown land with lines suggesting it is a freshly plowed field is very significant. The knight is watching over the kingdom’s fields, the seeds have been planted, but the plants have not yet sprouted. Great effort has been spent on preparing the ground, and now we wait for it to grow, on its own. There is great potential here, and it is just about to begin its season of growth.
I vaguely recall some specific symbolism about the sprig of leaves at the horse’s forehead, but I can’t find any specifics. They appear to be oak leaves, the same as the leaves on he knight’s helmet.