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Geomantic Figures

Cauda Draconis

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Origin 1100 to 1300

Cauda Draconis (the Dragon Tail, the descending lunar node) is one of the sixteen geomantic figures, formed with single Fire, Air, and Water above a double Earth: a point above a broad base, the reverse of Caput Draconis and an image of an exit or outflow. It is attributed to the element Fire and to the South Node of the Moon, the point of decrease and release. Its meaning is the ending, the threshold departed, dispersal and letting go; it carries things out and away. Generally malefic, Cauda Draconis is read as unfavorable for beginnings, gain, or anything one wishes to keep, and favorable chiefly for endings, escapes, and matters where loss, release, or completion is actually what is wanted.

Facts
Origins
Origin Period
1100 to 1300 5Tradition: Latin geomancy, translated from the Arabic
Origin PeriodSourced to the subject's own account
1533 6Tradition: Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy
Origin Period
800 to 1200 CE 1Tradition: Arabic ilm al-raml, the science of the sand
Origin PeriodSourced to the subject's own account
Cauda Draconis belongs to the sixteen figure system of geomantic divination whose figures took shape in the Arabic tradition of raml, attested there and in North Africa from the eighth to the twelfth century; the technique reached Latin Europe by the eleventh to thirteenth century, and Cornelius Agrippa set the figures into their now standard planetary and zodiacal correspondences in his Three Books of Occult Philosophy, published in 1533. 6
Place of Origin
North Africa and the wider Islamic world; carried into Latin Europe through the twelfth-century translation movement, chiefly in Spain. 1
Attributed Author / Compiler
No single author. The Latin geomantic corpus is anonymous and pseudonymous, circulating under the names of Hermes, Aristotle, Ptolemy and others, none of whom wrote any part of it. Having no author is itself the fact about this tradition worth recording. 5
Language
Classical Arabic 1
Language
Latin 5
Attributions
Mode (Stable / Mobile)
Mobile 2
Modern mainstream Stable/Mobile classification; exact page locator not confirmed against the primary text this pass.
Exaltation House (Attributed)
None: this figure is never exalted in any house in the d'Abano system. 3
Sourced to the subject's own accountReported via a secondary blog summary attributing the table to Pietro d'Abano; the absence of an exaltation house is itself the reported structural fact for this figure, not a gap.
Ruling Planet
South Node 1
Zodiac SignSourced to the subject's own account
Sagittarius, per the same authorities as Caput Draconis 4
Figure Points
Fire single, Air single, Water single, Earth double 1
Identity
English Name
Dragon's Tail 1
Element
Fire 1
Reading Keys
Keywords
Endings, release 1
Learn More
The Figure Cauda Draconis and Its Attributions

Cauda Draconis, Dragon's Tail, is one of the sixteen figures of Western geomancy, the divinatory art in which meaning is read from a figure of four rows, each row holding either one dot or two.

The figure and its reading

Its four rows are Fire (one dot), Air (one dot), Water (one dot), Earth (two dots). Geomantic figures are attributed to the elements, the planets and the signs of the zodiac; Cauda Draconis is assigned to the element of Fire, to the South Node. Its traditional divinatory sense is one of endings, release.

These attributions are those of the mature Western tradition set out by writers such as Christopher Cattan (1558) and Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (Book II of the Three Books of Occult Philosophy, 1533), and taken up in the modern revival by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn from 1888. The technique itself is older and reached Latin Europe through translations of the Arabic ilm al-raml, the science of the sand. The figure is described here as an element of that documented tradition.

Cauda Draconis: The Points, and What Flipping Them Gives

Every geomantic figure is four rows of one or two points, so each of the sixteen can be described exactly, without reference to any interpretation, by listing its rows.

The pattern

Cauda Draconis is single, single, single, double, reading Fire, Air, Water and Earth from the top down. That is five points in total. The three light rows above one heavy row give the figure a narrow head and a broad base, the mirror of Caput Draconis, and the shape is where both names come from.

Flipping every row

Change each row from single to double and from double to single and the figure becomes Tristitia. Each of the sixteen has exactly one partner under this operation, so the set falls into eight pairs, and this is one of them. Authors use different Latin and English terms for the operation, which is why this atlas describes what is done to the points rather than adopting one writer's vocabulary.

Why the pairing is structural and not interpretive

Nothing in the traditional readings of Cauda Draconis and Tristitia requires them to be read as a pair. The relationship is arithmetic: four rows with two states each give sixteen figures, and inverting the state of every row is a one-to-one mapping of the set onto itself with no fixed points. Some modern handbooks make use of the pairing in reading a chart; the older Latin sources largely do not.

The atlas records the element, planet and sign for this figure separately. Those attributions were laid over the figures by the astrological tradition and the sources disagree in places, whereas the point pattern above is intrinsic and can be checked by counting.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Originates in Language

Classical Arabic, Languages
Source Islamic Geomancy and a Thirteenth-Century Divinatory DeviceEmilie Savage-Smith and Marion B. Smith
Latin, Languages
Source Recherches sur une technique divinatoire: la geomancie dans l'Occident medievalTherese Charmasson
Sources
1. Islamic Geomancy and a Thirteenth-Century Divinatory Device
Emilie Savage-Smith and Marion B. Smith, Undena Publications, 1980On ilm al-raml and the sixteen figures before their Latin transmission
2. John Michael Greer, The Art and Practice of Geomancy (2009)
John Michael Greer, 2009
3. Nick Farrell, "Geomancy Aspects, Dignity, Occupation, Conjunction, Mutation and Translation" (nickfarrell.it)
Nick Farrell
4. Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy: Of Geomancy
Pseudo-Agrippa; Robert Turner (trans.), J. C. for John Harrison, 1655On the planetary and zodiacal attribution of Cauda DraconisView the Source
5. Recherches sur une technique divinatoire: la geomancie dans l'Occident medieval
Therese Charmasson, Librairie Droz, 1980On the Latin figure names and the medieval tradition
6. Three Books of Occult Philosophy
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Llewellyn, 1533Book II, on the geomantic figures and their planetary and zodiacal attributionsView the Source
The Geomancie of Maister Christopher Cattan, Gentleman
Christopher Cattan, John Wolfe, 1591On the figure Cauda Draconis and its significations

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