Three of Wands

  

Meaning: Action and adventure, traveling.

Depiction: Finally, Moby Dick is spotted. Ahab is at the main mast, Tashtego below him at the top gallant mast, Moby Dick a  pale hump in the water before them. The top of  three harpoons are visible at the bottom of the card.

Text: Chapter 133- The Chase- First Day
Fired by the cry which seemed simultaneously taken up by the three look-outs, the men on deck rushed to the rigging to behold the famous whale they had so long been pursuing. Ahab had now gained his final perch, some feet above the other look-outs, Tashtego standing just beneath him on the cap of the top-gallant-mast, so that the Indian’s head was almost on a level with Ahab’s heel. From this height the whale was now seen some mile or so ahead, at every roll of the sea revealing his high sparkling hump, and regularly jetting his silent spout into the air.

Rockwell Kent, Man at Mast (1929)

Comments: The plans initiated in the Two of Wands are now progressing. The crew pledged to kill Moby Dick in Chapter 36, and the official pursuit of the white whale begins nearly 100 chapters later.

For Three of Wands, American Renaissance Tarot uses this scene from  Ch. 36- The Quarter-Deck, depicting the three mates with their lances as well as Ahab,