Page of Wands
The Page of Wands is the first of the four court cards in the Wands suit of the Minor Arcana. Court cards (Page, Knight, Queen and King) represent people, roles, or stages of maturity within the suit's creative and energetic domain, rather than events or process stages, as numeral cards do.
Last reviewed: 2026-07-18
Historical fact
Unlike numeral cards, court cards were already illustrated figures in the earliest Tarot decks, such as the 15th-century Visconti-Sforza. Among the four court positions, the Page is the one that survived Tarot's transition into the standard 52-card deck: when the system settled, in different regions of Europe, into three positions (Jack, Queen, King), it was the Page that became the modern deck's Jack — it was the Knight that disappeared in that process, not the Page. The Page is also historically called the Knave, depending on the deck's regional tradition.
Interpretation — Rider-Waite-Smith / Golden Dawn
Waite described the Page of Wands as a dark-skinned young man, swift and passionate, a bearer of good news. In the modern reading, the card is associated with creative enthusiasm, curiosity about new interests, courage to try something unprecedented, and often news or a message tied to a new project or venture. Reversed, it can indicate impulsiveness, enthusiasm that fails to sustain itself, or hesitation in the face of a new idea.
Interpretation — Thoth (Aleister Crowley)
In the Thoth deck, Crowley replaced the four-rank court system (King, Queen, Knight, Page) with another four-rank system (Knight, Queen, Prince, Princess). What the Rider-Waite tradition calls the Page corresponds, in Thoth, to the Princess of Wands — associated with the Earth aspect within the Fire suit, representing the crystallization of creative, enthusiastic energy into a concrete form, still at an early stage.
This section presents one tradition's interpretation, not a verifiable fact.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the Page of Wands mean in Tarot?
- In the Rider-Waite-Smith tradition, it usually represents creative enthusiasm, curiosity about new interests, and the start of a project — often read as news tied to a new venture.
- Why did the Page survive into the standard deck, but not the Knight?
- There's no precisely documented reason, but historians such as Michael Dummett record that, across the different regions of Europe where Tarot became popular as a card game, the court system was gradually simplified to three positions — Jack, Queen and King — with the Knight being the position eliminated in that process.
- Is the Page of Wands the same card as the Princess of Wands in the Thoth deck?
- They occupy the equivalent court position, but with different names and emphasis: Crowley renamed the Thoth court system (Knight, Queen, Prince and Princess), so the Princess of Wands takes the place that, in the Rider-Waite tradition, belongs to the Page.
Sources
- Michael Dummett. The Game of Tarot: From Ferrara to Salt Lake City (1980).
- Arthur Edward Waite. The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910).
- Aleister Crowley. The Book of Thoth (1944).
- Stuart R. Kaplan. The Encyclopedia of Tarot (1978).