The Wild Unknown - Daughter of Swords

The image on this card is a barn owl standing on a sword with the brightly-coloured starry night behind her.

There are 7 stars (7 is often a lucky number, it is known as a number associated with the divine, it is the number of planets traditionally (when I grew up anyway), and in numerology a 7 person is a seeker of truth.)

Owls are often seen as standing for wisdom and solitary life (they hunt alone). They silently swoop down on their prey without warning.

The owl is associated with Athena, goddess of wisdom (among other things including justice and war).

For me, swords are air, which is about thoughts and can be communication.
And the daughter is like a page, who I often consider to be a student, or young person in that first glow of finding out about the world.

This card seems to stand for someone in need of knowledge or answers, which is how I read it when it came up in a recent reading. Though I usually think of the knights as the ones actively going after the goal of knowledge, this daughter is in the position of receiving it, perhaps in a more passive way.

What do you guys think?

I love the use of animals and birds as the court cards in this deck and I think owls are the perfect choice for the suit of Swords / Air.

To add to what you've said about owls Nickigirl, I'd say that they also match up to the communication aspect of the suit of Swords. Many species of owl make a kind of hooting noise, often 2 hoots, either 'Ooo Ooo' or 'T'wit T'wooo'.. A couple of years ago I saw a TV programme about owls and it mentioned that when you hear that sound it's actually 2 owls calling to each other - the first one calls and another answers. The presenter advised people to go into their local park at dusk and do the first owl call - if there's an owl in the vicinity it will answer .

As for the imagery of the card; she's standing on the sword blade and it's not hurting her yet she's not really using it properly, she isn't 'wielding it'. This tells me that she's not quite mature enough to use the sword as a weapon yet so her communication skills and intellect are not yet developed enough - she needs to gain experience.

i have mentioned this elsewhere, but this looks to be the same owl we see in the Wheel of Fortune card. the stars behind her now colored kind of make me think she is somewhat psychic.

I've just had this card turn up in a reading and the little coloured orbs surrounding her made me think of information waiting there to be collected.. She corresponds to the Page of Swords in many decks and the Page is a gatherer of information, someone who researches and searches for information to help him / her with his learning... It seemed to fit..

I'm working on a 12 card spread for the new year for myself and this card came up for me.

The first thing I noticed was the owl was a barn owl, one of the best night-vision owls of them all. Owls, as others have mentioned, relate to wisdom but also in most native traditions they also relate to trust. Following in the stream of the page/student I imagined that this card is passing along the idea of listening to others instead of yourself because of this naive idea that being unprepared (childlike) also means that you don't have the answer.

Anyways... I'm terrible at explaining my train of thought. Here is what I wrote out following my meditation on this card.

You are searching for an answer to your question right now and instead of trusting your own wisdom and knowledge of the situation you are listening to other people. This sort of childlike reliance on others can be dangerous as others' wisdom and knowledge can lead you astray for your own path. With owl-like eyes search through the darkness to find your own truth.