Leo in the Druidcraft: the Queen of Wands

Different traditions have different astrological correspondences when it comes to the Court Cards. For instance, the Book-T system attributes the cardinal attributes (initiating things) to the Queens, fixed (maintaining order) to the Kings, and mutable (being able to adapt and transform) to the Knights.  Each court card is also linked to the elements, with Pages with Earth, Knights being associated with Fire, Queens with Water, and Kings with Air.

Other decks follow a different convention. They keep the Knights as carriers of mutable qualities, but have the Queens taking on the ‘fixed’ attributes and the Kings the ‘cardinal’ ones.  This gives us the Queen of Wands as the Leo card.  That combination of fire and fixed-ness suggests a mix of fiery enthusiasm and optimism, but there are some boundaries this Queen won’t cross. She’s not going to take risks – not in the way that the roving, changeable Knight or the dynamic, ‘go-getter’ King might.  But she’s quite likely to be able to look after a number of things at the same time – she can compartmentalize very successfully, and can make herself available to whoever needs her.  And given all the mythology (see my previous post, ‘Leo in the Major Arcana’) linking women with lions, it feels appropriate that it should be the Queen, rather than one of the other Wands court cards, with the link to the sign of Leo!

 

Druidcraft Tarot: Queen of Wands (detail)

The Druidcraft Tarot was not designed with astrology in mind, but I can see a Leonine element in its Queen of Wands, with that rather lion-like cat under her throne. In the accompanying book, Philip and Stephanie Carr-Gomm write that ‘if she or a friend are attacked, she can be ferocious in defence’ – that cat looks as though it’s ready to pounce!  The Queen too, with that Wand held firmly upright in her right hand (the side of action), is the only Queen in the deck shown wearing shoes – she’s dressed and ready for whatever’s coming her way.

(and Happy Birthday to my favourite Queen of Wands – Alison Cross of This Game of Thrones fame!)

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