Taurus in the Druidcraft court cards

Our final foray into Taurus in the tarot – Taurus in the court cards. Again, we have the question – which court card?  Many decks follow the Book-T system, where the fixed signs are assigned to the Kings.  This gives us the King of Pentacles – with the bull being represented quite clearly on the throne in the Universal Rider-Waite deck, for example. 

Druidcraft: Queen of Pentacles (trimmed)

Having looked through the Pentacles court cards in the Druidcraft, it seems to me that the creators have followed a different tradition, one which assigns the Queens to the fixed signs – can you see the bulls carved into her throne in this image? So here we have the Queen of Pentacles maintaining what the Kings have set in motion.

The Queen of Pentacles in this deck is very connected to the earthy reality of Taurus – her foot resting on the stone symbolizes her link to the earth.  The Druidcraft, like many other tarot decks, associates the Pentacles with winter, and with night.  In this image, the trees are bare – but clumps of snowdrops surround her throne, the first signs of the earth awakening and the promise of the spring.  Taurus, in the northern hemisphere, is one of those spring months – the one in which we start to see the blossoms appear on the trees...

Behind her, the night sky is giving way to dawn – another indication of the light returning after a long winter.

Behind her we see a hare, a symbol of fertility and of the Goddess – representing promise and fulfilment. It’s one of the first animals we look for in the spring – the boxing March hares!  In the legend of Taliesin, the hare is the first creature that Gwion shape-shifts into to escape Ceridwen, in the form of a greyhound (both animals of the Earth) – and in some parts of Britain, hare-hunting was allowed on the day of Beltane.

I like to think of this Queen of Pentacles maintaining and supporting what’s been started by the cardinal energy of Aries through the slow and steady beat of her drum, waking the earth from its winter slumber, delighting in the promise of the abundance to come.  She’s the guardian of the land, of hearth and home, of work and well-being. She will find a way to make things grow.

Druidcraft Tarot created by Philip Carr-Gomm and Stephanie Carr-Gomm, illustrated by Will Worthington, published by Connections