Minor — Swords

Seven of Swords

Cunning: the young man enters where he should not be, the Book concealed in his satchel. On the wall, the magpie keeps watch — and its song keeps the guards asleep. The Seven of Swords is strategy: obtaining without confronting.

Symbolic reading

Tradition shows a thief carrying off swords; the DAL shifts the question — what he protects by hiding is his most personal possession, the Book, concealed like stolen goods. The complicit magpie lulls vigilance to sleep: this time, guidance does not show the way, it covers the manoeuvre. The ruse succeeds, but leaves a crease — what one obtains in hiding, one learns to hide. The boundary between prudence and duplicity is thin, and the card stands precisely on that boundary.

Reversed reading

The mask sticks to the face: lying becomes habit, strategy backfires, a secret is exposed. Or the opposite movement — a confession that frees.

• strategy
• cunning
• discretion
• secret
• prudence
• circumvention