The horseshoe · Seven cards

The horseshoe lays seven cards in an arc and sits between the three-card spread and the Celtic Cross, fuller than the first and lighter than the second. Read across the curve, the first card is the past, what the matter grew out of. The second is the present, where it stands now. The third is hidden influences, what bears on the matter without being seen, the part the querent has not yet named. The fourth is the querent, or in some tellings the obstacle, the one asking and what stands in their way. The fifth is others and the environment, the people and conditions around it. The sixth is advice, what the reading counsels. The seventh is the likely outcome, read as where things tend and not as a fixed end.

The shape does its own work. The arc carries the eye from the past on one side to the outcome on the other, and the advice card sits sixth, just before that outcome, so counsel is the last thing weighed before the reading names where the matter leans. Read the sixth against the seventh especially, since the advice is offered as the hinge, the thing that could bend the likely outcome one way or another. The hidden card in the third seat is the one to sit with, because it names what the querent has not accounted for.

The advice sits sixth on purpose, the last thing weighed before the outcome.

Tellings differ on the fourth position. Some name it the querent, the stance of the one asking, and others name it the obstacle, the thing in the way, and a few fold both into one seat. The codex keeps the pair rather than choosing, since the two readings often point at the same card from different sides.