What court card does the princess cover

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 30 Mar 2003, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Amythist	30 Mar 2003
I have a set of Spiral tarot and I have always wanted to know what court card the princess covers I am unsure. Please tell me thankyou

Scorpion	30 Mar 2003
Hi, Amythist! I used to have this deck and think I'm right in saying that the Princess here is the Page of the RW - you've got Knights, Queens and Kings as well, haven't you? Or are you asking in the context of a standard playing deck?

Rusty Neon	30 Mar 2003
In the GD's Book "T" (at page 155 in Regardie's Golden Dawn, Volume IV, Book 8), the traditional court figures King, Queen, Knight, and Knave (i.e., Page) are redesignated as King (which the Thoth deck calls Knight), Queen, _Prince_ or _Knight_ (which the Thoth deck calls Prince), and Princess. In the Wang's GD deck (and in the Ciceros' GD deck, if memory serves), the court figures are called King, Queen, Prince and Princess. (1) In the Spiral deck, the courts are King, Queen, Knight and Princess. The Spiral Princesses are very young, much younger than the Spiral Knights. From the basic card meanings given in the full book for the Spiral deck, it would appear that the Princess is a replacement for the RWS Page. This is probably for gender balance in the court and possibly inspired by GD usage. What is curious for me though is why the Spiral deck's Knight also isn't renamed -- to Prince. While Book "T" could support this anomaly, it still seems strange to me to have a Princess but not a Prince. (2) By the way, are there any other tarot decks that have Princesses but don't have Princes?

Amythist	30 Mar 2003
Standard 78 cards in a deck

Amythist	30 Mar 2003
I am not bright when it comes to tarot so i am taking the princess covers the page am i right. (this is worse than calculating my soul card lol)

Scorpion	30 Mar 2003
Then for the Spiral the Princess will equate to the RWS Page. Might be worth just being aware that there is some debate over what constitutes a "standard" Tarot deck: I think a lot of people understand this to be the RWS deck (on which the Spiral is based) simply because there's so much in the way of resources for it but there is a case for other decks like the Thoth (which I don't have but I believe has Princes and Princesses in place of Knights and Pages) or perhaps the Marseilles deck as it's much older than the other two. And it doesn't end there - you could start a whole thread on it simply by asking "What is the standard deck"?!

Amythist	30 Mar 2003
LOL great i must get a better book by the sounds of it. No offence but this is confussing the hell out of me.

Scorpion	30 Mar 2003
Quote: Originally posted by Amythist LOL great i must get a better book by the sounds of it. No offence but this is confussing the hell out of me. Amythist, If you haven't already got it, there is an excellent book on the deck written by the artist. It goes into great detail on the Majors although for the Minors it hardly says more than you'll find in the LWB. It took me a while to find it but it was definitely worth it. Don't worry about being confused - I still haven't acquired a Thoth deck yet as I'm not sure I could cope with the differences!

Amythist	30 Mar 2003
LOL we have something in common. I may ask my friend she is good with this kinds stuff.

Richard	04 Apr 2003
Hi, Rusty Neon! It doesn't seem the slightest bit odd to me to have Princesses without Princes...There are quite a few fairy tales and other stories about princesses, but very few that are about princes (usually the prince is just as a stock "perfect guy" to whisk off the heroine and turn her into a dutiful wife). I think Knights are just much more archtypal than Princes, just as Princesses are more archtypal than Pages.

Amythist	04 Apr 2003
A standard deck is the 78 pack of cards. Sorry i havent been on i have been studying

The What court card does the princess cover thread was originally posted on 30 Mar 2003 in the Talking Tarot board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Talking Tarot, or read more archived threads.