Eight of Swords

Bad newsViolent chagrinCrisisCensure

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Bad news, violent chagrin, crisis, censure, power in trammels, conflict, calumny; also sickness.

Disquiet, difficulty, opposition, accident, treachery; what is unforeseen; fatality.

A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), Part III §2

A woman, bound and hoodwinked, with the swords of the card about her. Yet it is rather a card of temporary durance than of irretrievable bondage.

A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), Part III §2

For a woman, scandal spread in her respect. Reversed: Departure of a relative.

A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), Part III §4. Waite collected these and says they often disagree with the main meanings.

Waite wrote in 1911 and some of his meanings show it. Tarot is a tradition of reflection, not a prediction, and no card decides anything for you.