The four tarot suits and their elements
The four suits each evoke an element and a temperament, fire, water, air, earth, as reading landmarks.
By Thomas Guilhot · updated
Elements and suits at a glance
Wands, cups, swords, and pentacles correspond, according to tradition, to fire, water, air, and earth.
By Thomas Guilhot · updated
What you need to know
Wands and cups
Wands correspond, according to tradition, to fire and touch on momentum and projects: what starts, what pushes forward. Cups correspond to water and touch on emotions and bonds: what is felt, what is shared. These two series are often read as two ways of setting life in motion, one toward action, the other toward relationship.
Swords and pentacles
Swords correspond to air and touch on thought and decisions: what is cut, formulated, weighed. Pentacles correspond to earth and touch on matter and concrete work: what is built, checked, lasts. For pentacles, we speak of a concrete gesture, never of advice, and swords are read as a way of cutting through, rather than as a reproach aimed at someone.
Relationships between elements
Between elements, the relationships are as follows: fire and air feed each other, as do water and earth; fire and water are in tension, as are air and earth; fire and earth, air and water stay neutral. Traditions agree on the oppositions fire-water and air-earth; the split between friendly and neutral elements is a reading convention, which Versana follows without presenting it as a fixed rule. Court cards have no element of their own, only that of their suit, and some Major Arcana, linked to a planet, have none.
Frequently asked questions: Elements and suits
Elements and suits: what matters most?
Four suits, four elements, four domains: wands and fire for momentum, cups and water for bonds, swords and air for thought, pentacles and earth for the concrete. It is a starting landmark to place a card, before reading its image and meaning.
Is it a rule or a tradition?
It is a tradition, reported with caution: element tables differ depending on the source. Versana sticks to the suit’s element for the Minor Arcana, gives none to court cards on their own, and presents no correspondence as an established fact.
How do you apply it in a reading?
Note the suit of each card, then its element. A dominant suit in a spread brings its domain forward; two friendly elements reinforce each other, two opposing elements invite nuance. Keep these clues as questions to ask, not as answers.
To go further
- Reversed cardsWhether to read reversed cards: the four readings of a reversal, one card read four ways, and what to do with a card that comes up upside down.
- How to draw the cardsShuffle, cut, choose, lay out: the steps of a tarot reading, and what each layout lets you look at.
- Reading a cardRead a card from its image, its number, and its position in the spread, without a memorized dictionary of meanings.
- History of tarotFrom the Italian card game of the 15th century to the readings of the late 18th century, then the Rider-Waite of 1909: the key stages.
The four elements → Same theme: the four elements