Hand and Dagger

What this is

A hand gripping a drawn dagger, set at the head of the thirtieth folio. It is the emblem of danger near at hand, of treachery, and of the threat that comes from close quarters. Its verses warn of enemies, betrayal, and the need to guard your back.

What it governs

Presides over danger, treachery, hidden enemies, and the close threat. Folio 30. It rules the blade held near, the harm that comes from one who was let close.

Its properties

Its colour is steel-grey and blood-red; its metal iron; its number thirty. The quality, turned to your defence, is vigilance and the readiness to protect yourself; turned against you, it is treachery, the friend's knife, the betrayal from close quarters. Its shadow is the whole of its threatening face: violence, vengeance, the hand that strikes the one who trusted it.

Where else it appears

The same note is the dagger of the betrayer in every tragedy, the blade hidden in the embrace; the suit of swords at its sharpest, conflict turned to harm; the serpent that coils close before it strikes; the warning the augurs read in the unlucky sign. One hand and dagger, many tongues for the close betrayal.

Where you meet it on the Oracle

It surfaces as the Folio of the Day and as a closing folio, and it is the natural folio for questions of enemies, of whether you have many, and of whether a friend is true. When it heads your day, watch the close hand more than the far one; the day warns of betrayal from inside the gate. In a reading it answers questions of enemies with a warning and counsels you to guard what is vulnerable and look twice at the smiling face.

Why it matters

It stands thirtieth because the sharpest danger often comes from those let closest, and the oracle must warn of it plainly. The Hand and Dagger asks you to be watchful without becoming the betrayer you fear.

Correspondences

planet

Mars, Saturn

element

Fire

zodiac

Scorpio

number

30

sephirah

Geburah

day

Tuesday

colour

Steel-grey, blood-red

metal

Iron

stone

Garnet