The Sun

  • Arcana Major
  • Number XIX
  • Figure on this site Sol's chariot
Historical evidence

In the earliest decks

Tarot began as a card game in northern Italy in the early 15th century, according to Michael Dummett’s research. The trump cards were not numbered the same way everywhere: Dummett found three main orders (Bologna, Ferrara and Milan), and the Milanese order is the one the Tarot de Marseille later used. The Sun therefore sits at XIX in the Marseille tradition, but it was not fixed in that place in every early pack.

The Tarot de Marseille reached southern France after the French took Milan and Piedmont in 1499. In the Marseille pattern the card is titled Le Soleil. In Jean Dodal’s Lyon deck (about 1700) its number is written in additive style, as XVIIII. Waite, writing in 1910, describes the older design as a walled enclosure with two children, naked or lightly clothed, facing water and running or playing hand in hand, and says Éliphas Lévi noted that this is sometimes replaced by a spinner unwinding destinies.

Historical evidence

The Rider-Waite-Smith card

The Rider-Waite-Smith deck was published by William Rider & Son in London in December 1909, with Waite giving the instructions and Pamela Colman Smith drawing the images. Waite’s own earlier note on the older Sun describes the two children by a wall, and he calls the naked child on a white horse with a standard “a much better symbol”. Smith’s card follows that second image: one child on a horse under the sun, with a wall behind. The two playing children of the older pattern are gone.

The Wikipedia articles consulted say nothing specific about changes to this card, so the comparison here rests on Waite’s text.

Myth and literature · Quotation

Waite’s description

The naked child mounted on a white horse and displaying a red standard has been mentioned already as the better symbolism connected with this card. It is the destiny of the Supernatural East and the great and holy light which goes before the endless procession of humanity, coming out from the walled garden of the sensitive life and passing on the journey home. The card signifies, therefore, the transit from the manifest light of this world, represented by the glorious sun of earth, to the light of the world to come, which goes before aspiration and is typified by the heart of a child.

But the last allusion is again the key to a different form or aspect of the symbolism. The sun is that of consciousness in the spirit […] the direct as the antithesis of the reflected light.

Myth and literature · Context

Later meanings

The attributions below were added to tarot long after the cards were first made. Antoine Court de Gébelin’s 1781 essay in Le Monde primitif claimed an Egyptian origin for the trumps; Egyptologists did not support it. Éliphas Lévi accepted these claims and linked the Hebrew alphabet to the trumps. The pages consulted did not state which letter he gave the Sun.

The Golden Dawn’s system, which later writers built on, gave The Sun the Hebrew letter Resh and the astrological Sun. Waite and Smith were both members of that order. Other occult decks renamed the card: Etteilla called it “Enlightenment, Fire” and Paul Christian “The Blazing Light”. None of this is found in the 15th-century packs.

Modern interpretation

As read on this site

This is the meaning used for readings here. Using the tarot to divine is a modern practice, and the Norse figure shown for each card is this site’s own association; the tarot began as an Italian card game. A short history is on the Tarot page.

Upright

Keywords: vitality, clarity, joy, success, full illumination

Sol drives the sun across the sky, and her return each morning is the most reliable promise the Norse cosmos makes: the dark doesn't last, and the light comes back in full. This card is vitality and clarity returning completely, not partially. What was hidden, confused, or dim is now plainly visible, and the energy to act on it has returned along with the sight. This is a genuinely good card. Let it be good without immediately looking for the catch.

In general: A period of confusion or low energy is lifting. What's ahead is genuinely clearer and brighter than what came before.

In love: Renewed warmth, clarity, and joy in a relationship — the kind of straightforward happiness that doesn't need overanalyzing.

In work: Success, recognition, or breakthrough clarity arriving after a harder stretch. Enjoy it; you don't need to find the hidden problem in it.

Reversed

Keywords: false confidence, surface success, burnout beneath brightness, unfelt joy

Borrowed light still looks bright, but it doesn't generate its own heat. The reversed sun is confidence performed rather than felt: the appearance of clarity and success without the warmth underneath that makes it sustainable. If something feels like it should be making you happier than it is, that gap is worth noticing. The light might be real; the feeling it's supposed to produce might not have caught up yet.

In general: Things look good from outside, but something underneath isn't matching the appearance. Worth checking in with how you actually feel, not how things look.

In love: A relationship that looks happy from the outside but feels hollow from within. The performance of warmth isn't the same as warmth.

In work: Outward success that doesn't carry the satisfaction it's supposed to. Worth examining what's actually missing underneath the achievement.

Draw a card for a reading · How to read cards together · Reversed cards

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