Tarot Thrones | The Court Card Blog

Tag: Pentacles and Wands

  • Meet the Courts | Alexander Daniloff Tarot

    Come on in to the wonderful Italianate, medieval-inspired world of Alexander Daniloff! *throws open the door*.  This glorious Tarot is still very new to me, but I wanted to share his Court Cards with you so that you can see why I am so enamoured of this man’s work!

    There is no accompanying book with this deck, but I don’t think that this detracts from the cards as a working deck at all. It’s very RWS-based in its imagery.

    Without further ado, TADAAAAH! Here they are!

    The Swords Courts

    As you can see, the common colour to the Swords Courts is black – quite in tune with the suits associations with grief and loss.  But black is powerful, threatening… also, makes you look slimmer 🙂  There are lovely pops of colour in these cards too – and love the raven perched above the queen! I already spoke to Alexander Daniloff about the Page, with is artfully hidden HEWGE sword here.

    They’re all looking the same way, to our left.  They have the sort of dark expressions that one might associate with the suit – although the Queen looks downright sneaky lol!

    The Cups Courts

    Check out the delightful aqua and blue hues of the Cups, less obvious in the King perhaps.  Unlike the Swords, this family all face to the right.  I adore the big clumsy-looking Knight and love how the Queen of Cups slides her gaze to him!

    The common colour for the Wands is green – reflecting the liveliness of the living Wand.  The Wands Knight looks like a character from The Far Pavilions (not read it? read it. I luffed it.) The Wands look predominantly out to the left other, like the Swords.  Apart from the pesky Page who looks to the right! Look at the sad-looking lion skin belonging to the King of Wands.  He’s skinned the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz.  And the Queen – with her golden ripe harvest and fiery ram’s fleece……. The Wands are scrumptious!

    The Pentacles Courts

    I think that this might be my favourite family in this deck because, if you look closely, the Pentacle in each card is different.  The Page has a game, the Knight has a coin, the Queen has a globe-like sphere and the King’s Pentacle is part of the trappings of his wealth, his robes.  I love the Elephant and Castle on the escutcheon that makes up the King’s torso.  This is where the lack of a LWB can be a little maddening lol! Mind you, I’ve seen fairly significant symbols go unmentioned in lots of LWBs, so there’s no guarantee that I would be any the wiser if Alexander had included one.

    From a bit of an internet trawl, the elephant is associated with strength.  And castles with defence – so strength and defence might be their motto?  And yes, I’m also aware that it’s the name of a significant junction in London 😀
    All the Pages are depicted as youths with banners representing their suits, standing on boards.  They have a small area of influence.
    The Knights are depicted behind helmets and shields (in the Germanic style).
    The Queens are depicted in a similar shield shape and have playing card suit references
    The Kings have their coat of arms as their torso.
    Each card has its associated astrological symbol prominently placed to the foot of the card, which makes these cards lovely to use as Significators based on astrological references. The poor Pages have, of course, no astral real-estate and so have no astrological symbols. Don’t blame Alexander, blame the Golden Dawn 😉
    Knights, who are traditionally mutable, have frilly moveable fronds around them
    The Queens who are cardinal are in a human-heart shaped vignette and are before a swagged entrance.  Cardinal signs are the entrance signs (first signs) encountered when looking at astrology of Courts 🙂  Look, I’m trying to help pin the associations here lol!
    The Kings are fixed, as denoted by the cityscapes in their thrones.
    Oh there is so much else that I want to add about these characters, but I shall save it for another day!
    So what do you think of them? Love them? Loathe them?!
    *whispers* it had better be love or you and I may have to break off our engagement 😀