The Suit of Swords
The Air suit, concerned with thought, communication, conflict and truth. It is the sharpest of the four suits and the only one with clearly more difficult cards than easy ones, so its questions are usually about how someone thinks, what was said, and what the argument is over.
For a fuller account of the suit's character and element, see The Minor Arcana. For the framework behind each card's number, see Numbers in Tarot, and for the double-element logic of the court cards, see The Court Cards.
The suit's character
What the Swords mainly process is information and logical judgment. Emotion as such is secondary here, and the contrast with Wands shows this most clearly. The Two of Wands decides fast: it picks a direction on the strength of a passing inclination and some confidence, and sorts out the rest later. The Two of Swords starts with no position at all. The blindfold shows exactly that process: shutting out outside interference and weighing the information on logic alone. Swords deal in quantity of information, and the more information there is, the more there is to compare and judge, so the decision period tends to be longer and more agonized than with Wands. That is how this energy works, and it should not be mistaken for simple indecisiveness.
Another way into the suit's character is to think of a sword as just a sword. It can be used to defend yourself, to cut through an obstacle, or to hurt someone. A sword was also worn as a sign of honor and standing. Put these layers together and they match the suit's underlying tone: rational, sharp, capable of aggression, and very concerned with right and wrong, honor and disgrace.
Reading reversals: self-deception and distorted information
Reversed Swords share a fairly consistent undertone: self-deception and a refusal to admit facts that have already happened. More than the other suits, they tend to carry the sense of information being distorted. The emphasis differs from the other suits: reversed Cups point to longings that are not being expressed in a healthy way, reversed Wands to action that is blocked or conflict that is being avoided, and reversed Pentacles to a shortage of ability or resources. The Three of Swords reversed, for example, still hurts; what changes is that the person refuses to admit the hurt and turns the attack on others. The Nine of Swords reversed means no longer being able to tell fantasy from reality and being unable to wake yourself up. The Ten of Swords reversed means knowing something is over and still refusing to let go, struggling on to the last.
Common situations: information, decisions, contests and letting go
The Swords number cards are often used to trace a process of thought and speech: gaining information, weighing a decision, contesting a point in words or positions, gaining a temporary edge through clever tricks, having the flaw found and being boxed in, being forced to face the truth, and finally letting go of a fixation. That makes them well suited to describing negotiations, competition, inner struggle and disputes over reputation, any situation where the core conflict lies in ideas and words. The total defeat of the Ten of Swords can also be, in a sense, a release from long-running self-deception. The ending hurts, but it also stops the self-justification that has gone on all along.
All 14 cards
Number cards: Ace of Swords · Two of Swords · Three of Swords · Four of Swords · Five of Swords · Six of Swords · Seven of Swords · Eight of Swords · Nine of Swords · Ten of Swords
Court cards: Page of Swords · Knight of Swords · Queen of Swords · King of Swords