The child on the white horse
Éliphas Lévi gave the Sun a single child on a white horse, and Waite took the image for his deck: a naked rider under the sun holding a red banner, which he reads as simplicity and innocence.
In the tradition
Older Sun cards showed two children holding hands in front of a wall.
The sunflowers behind the wall are not explained in his text. Modern readers often say they turn toward the child, as sunflowers turn toward the sun.
Sources
- A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910). Waite's own guide to the deck he designed with Pamela Colman Smith, with each card's divinatory meanings.
- Éliphas Lévi, Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1854 to 1856). The French occultist whose readings of the trumps Waite often followed or argued with.
Updated October 9, 2026.
See it in your own profile
Caelumia reads your whole birth chart and your numbers together, and shows where they agree. Your profile is free to start, and your first results appear while you answer.