The crayfish
Cancer’s crab, already in the Marseille deck, is a crayfish on Waite’s Moon, climbing from the pool at the bottom of the card, lower in his account than the savage beast.
In the tradition
The Marseille Moon already has a crab or crayfish in its pool, and Cancer, the crab, is the Moon’s own sign in classical astrology. Waite kept it in its place, at the bottom, rising from deep water.
He reads it as something from below the level of the dog and wolf, struggling into the light and then, he says, sinking back.
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.
Updated October 9, 2026.
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