King of Swords Throne

I can't remember where I read it, but I think each suit is associated with an elemental - Wands (salamanders), Cups (undines), Swords (sylphs) and Pentacles (gnomes).

So the butterflies and human carvings could represent sylphs?

caridwen said:

Could anyone scan this for me please?

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It's visible here on Taroteca, but if I get time this morning before I have to run out, I'll try to scan just that section in more detail.

Rodney

teomat said:

I can't remember where I read it, but I think each suit is associated with an elemental - Wands (salamanders), Cups (undines), Swords (sylphs) and Pentacles (gnomes).

So the butterflies and human carvings could represent sylphs?

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Yes I agree with you....
From Wikipedia..

Because of their association with the ballet La Sylphide, where sylphs are identified with fairies and the medieval legends of fairyland, as well as a confusion with other "airy spirits" (e.g., in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream), a slender girl may be referred to as a "sylph".

"Sylph" has passed into general language as a term for minor spirits, elementals, or faeries of the air. Fantasy authors will sometimes employ sylphs in their fiction. Sylphs could create giant artistic clouds in the skies with their airy wings.

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Wow, I never noticed that either, I have to agree with what others have said. I think he's putting aside those things. The butterflies and the couple are more sensitive and emotional symbols, so he's putting aside that emotional, sensitive side and not looking at it.

Attaching a scan of the couple over the King's shoulder. Giant Rider Waite card scanned at 1200 dpi and then cropped to image I'm posting and resized per AT's limits.

Rodney

I've already replied to this but computer crashed...

Thanks to all for the scans/emails/links to the King.

I did some digging and Sylphs seem to be associated with the wind but there is some disagreement if they are elementals which are seen as different to pure fae.

If they are elementals, this is a hybrid of different thought at the time the deck was produced:

""Occultist" or "mystical" folklorists like Yeats and Evans-Wentz (both of whom were believers) sought to philosophically reconcile the elementals and the supernatural creatures of folklore. They inquired, through informants, about traits common to both popular fairies and elemental spirits, and they sought to locate the ways in which the various orders of beings had merged. AE (George William Russell) believed, for example, that the lower orders of the sidhe were the elementals seen by the medieval mystics."
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/silver-strange.html

It was commonly believed at the time that fairies were uncommitted angels or those trapped on earth during Lucifer's fall. Equally widespread was the view that the fairies were the souls of the dead who were not good enough for salvation or evil enough for damnation. It was also believed that fairies were the spirits of unbaptized children or that they were spirits of "special" categories of the dead, those awaiting reincarnation, or those killed before their time, or those from long-dead, pagan, or extinct races.

I have found references to Sylphs from both Crowley and Levi. In The Conjuration of the Four Elements, Levi talks of elementals being like poltergeists and naughty children:
http://www.propheticmystic.com/Teachings/Elementals/Elementals2.html?height=600&width=900

He cites the prayer of the Sylphs which Crowely also cites in Liber T and other documents. He also talks about Undines. I think that the Sylphs are a mixture of Victorian Spiritualists, Rosicrucians, and Theosophists' and are mischevious spirits or subhuman elves. Levi talks of conjuring them up and using them for magical purposes.

Leadbeater describes nature spirits, including gnomes, fairies, undines, sylphs, and elementals, as the aboriginal peoples: "the original inhabitants of the country, driven away from some parts of it by the invasion of man" (p. 84). Paralleling the upward spiritual evolution of man (from an ordinary half-evolved state through stages as "Advanced Man," "Disciple," and finally "Adept"), fairies also evolve, becoming sylphs, devas (or angels), and ultimately higher angels.
http://leadbeater.org/tillettcwlappendix1.htm

So on parallel to Adepts, Disciples and Men, Leadbeater has Devas, Sylphs, Cloud Spirits, Water Spirits, Salamanders and Land Fairies.

So it seems as though the King of Swords is turning his back on anything that may try to distract him, and since Sylphs are associated with the Wind and later Air, they would move as quickly as the wind and he doesn't want to change his mind. They are also mischevious and may try and lead him down the wrong road or trick him. He may also be turning away from fantasies or whimsies.

It appears to me as if the figure has butterfly wings: in the GD's Book T it says of the Prince/King of Swords, representing Air of Air, Prince and Emperor of the Sylphs and Sylphides:

A WINGED King with Winged Crown, seated in a chariot drawn by Arch Fays,*
represented as winged youths very slightly dressed, with butterfly wings:.

It seems likely to me, that the figures represents either sylphs(elements of the air) or these Arch Fay.

The throne represent his seat of power, that which he has domain over, not that which he turns his back on: the butterflies are among other things a symbol of the element air; to me it makes no sense to say he turns his back on the element of air, the very element the suit, in the GD RWS system, is said to have domain over (and responsibility for).

However, that being said, in terms of a reading if a client pointed out to me the naked couple behind the king I might read it at that time, for example, as a concern of the clients to know what or if something is going on behind their (or whoever the king signified) back, or that they maybe have something going on behind someone's back.

Kwaw

*Re: Arch Fay “In Golden Dawn terminology, one of a class of nature spirits corresponding the the High Elves, trooping faeries, or Tuatha de Danaan of folklore.”
The new encyclopedia of the occult by John Michael Greer

Sylphs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylphs

"The throne represent his seat of power, that which he has domain over, not that which he turns his back on: the butterflies are among other things a symbol of the element air; to me it makes no sense to say he turns his back on the element of air, the very element the suit, in the GD RWS system, is said to have domain over (and responsibility for)."

He is not 'turning his back on them' rather he is not allowing them to detract from his final decision. AE Waite says that this King:

"He recalls, of course, the conventional Symbol of justice in the Trumps Major, and he may represent this virtue, but he is rather the power of life and death, in virtue of his office."
http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/pkt/pktswki.htm

It is also said that the Sylphs' create clouds and make cloud shapes. This King allows nothing to cloud his judgement, especially not mischievous sprites attempting to distract him.

However, saying he has dominion over the fae is really interesting and may associate this King with Gwyn ap Nudd or Lord of the Underworld. Not only is Gwyn ap Nudd Lord of Underworld he is Lord of the Fae or Guardian of the Underworld. Not only does this King have a sword he has sickles associating him with death.

The Victorian Fae are an amalgamation of myth, folklore and esoterism but if we follow the Welsh association back to the ancient Irish Tuatha Dé Danann, a race of people driven into Sidhe through invasion, this King becomes their guardian. He therefore sits, like the High Priestess, at the entrance to another world. Indeed his throne looks as though it's floating and moves up out of the picture as though it's never ending.

The fact that these fae look like something usually found on a Greek Urn is not undeliberate because the fae are said to be descendents of the gods or spirits of nature. The Underworld (may also share its origins in Elysium) is not hell but a parallel universe peopled by beautiful immortals. One day is the equivalent to a year on earth and there are many tales of people disappearing at Beltane and reappearing a hundred years later believing they were only gone a few hours.

I'm not sure how much of an association Waite intended, but with his power over life and death and his association with air, it seems likely that he deliberately added a doorway to the otherworld. The fact that there are butterflies, eggs and crescents also add to the eternal life aspect of the fae and gods as well as the Victorian preoccupation for all that is supernatural.

I have read that Waite intended to include a reference to Midsummer Nights Dream here and the argument between Oberon and Titiana hence the male and female fae. Not only does this coincide with fairies controlling the weather but the way love can cloud one's judgement and make one blind. This King has a cherub on his crown or possibly Cupid, child of Venus and Mercury the original trickster.

Cupid is sometimes depicted as carrying two sets of arrows, one for love and one for hate thus underlying the fickleness of emotions and the two sided sword that is love. It is also said that Cupid had dominion over Hades and as the son of Night and Hell mated with Chaos to produce both men and gods. This would again associate this King with Gwyn ap Nudd. Cupid of course has wings and flies so he is also associated with the element Air of which this King has lordship.

I believe the elementals were first named by Paracelsus.

Westcott's notes on the Court Cards describe the Prince (King) of Swords as being in a chariot drawn by fairies. It would make sense for Waite to have transferred them to the throne.

the love-couple behind the King of Swords

Maskelyne said:

It's interesting that this stern and logical King is backed by butterflies and a pair of lovers.

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I always have seen this love couples as a pair of Elfs behind the King of Logics.Together with the butterflies this can point to the teachings of the elementals.(Paracelsus 1493-1541: "Liber de Nimphis, Sylphis, pygmaeis et salamandris et de caeteris spiritibus) The butterflies and elfs as the manifestation of the "living species" of the element of air: ""the Sylphs".
Maybe we are looking on this card straight to Paralda, whose Kingdom is all around us, for he is Lord of the Element Air.It is by the breath of Paralda's commands that he brings the tiny elemental beings, known as the Sylphs of his kingdom, under his control.Swift and graceful, they flock to surround him, their silvery elf-like form ethereal and indefinite.It is said that they they can often be heard whispering in the tree tops, as they encircle the skies with the birds of the air......
Paracelsus mentions 4 groups of elemental species who are connected with the 4 elements where they are at home. We, humans have all the 4 elements in us, Elemental species can only survive in their own element. All other elements work like poison for them. The gnome, or kobold is at home in the element of Earth, in rocks, in the roots (in Waite's set i see under the feet of the king such an earth elementäl). On the King of Wands we see the salamander the manifestation of an elemental of fire. The "dolphin" on the King of Cups...In fact they are all there....