LEARN TO DO YOUR OWN TAROT READINGSDeath - Card 13 in The Major Arcana
A skeleton dressed in black armour riding a grey horse. The horse appears to be trampling all those who stand before him: bishops, kings and ordinary people. In the distance the sun is setting between two towers. The skeleton knight holds a black standard bearing the emblem of a white rose.
Early Tarot decks have portrayed the Death card as the Grim Reaper - a skeleton reaping a harvest of corpses.
Death was a familiar character in Everyman, the 16th century morality play. The actor playing Death would have been dressed in tight fitting, pale linen painted with bones to mimic a skeleton.
The emblem carried by the skeleton knight in the Rider Waite deck is a "mystic" white rose that symbolises life.
This card in a reading:
Upright: In a reading this card does not mean physical death but an ending of a situation or a relationship. It can indicate the need to examine the origins of whatever is going on.
Reversed: Inertia, sleep, lethargy, hope destroyed.
Summary: Get back to basics.
|
BACK TO TAROT INDEX | 
|