Take a Tarot walk through an enchanted forest.
Throughout human history and across every culture, there have been legends, myths, and tales of talking animals. This delightful Tarot takes advantage of this by using animals on all of the cards, adding to the Rider-Waite-Smith symbolism that was already there.
The Major Aracana cleverly features sheep, lions, bears, pigs, hedgehogs, and kangaroos, adding a wonderful feel to the cards that is happy and basic. The Strength card, which shows a lamb and a lion nuzzling each other, has to be the sweetest version of this card ever. The Sun card shows a baby kangaroo in his mother’s pouch in a field of sunflowers under a huge sun happily waving a little red flag with innocent, blissful joy.
The Minor Arcana suits, while traditionally named, each feature a specific animal: Cups have bunnies, Pentacles have foxes, Wands have frogs, and Swords have cats. These choices brilliantly represent the suit qualities. Bunnies bring forth feelings of warmth and sweetness. Foxes are thought to be clever. Cats can be seen as intelligent and emotionally distant. Frogs, well, they like games (leap frog, anyone?).
So the 4 of Cups shows a bunny under a tree with three cups in the foreground and one being offered by a hand emerging from a cloud (like the RWS). This bunny has her eyes closed and is very much at peace, using creative visualization to manifest what she wants.
This refreshing, whimsical, and wonderful deck will surprise you every time you use its immediately evocative images.
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Adorable RWS Style Deck “In order to understand the language of fables, you simply must imagine you are a child once again and let your imagination lead you into this mystical world. In this way, with the same innocent and childlike craving for discovery, you will seek the simplest and most truthful meanings of the Tarots: the most extraordinary ones that we had forgotten we knew, those that we left behind together with our old books of fairy tales and toys that had seemed so magical to us long ago.” – From the Little White Book to the Tarot of the Magical ForestAn utterly adorable Tarot deck from Lo Scarabeo, the Tarot of the Magical Forest is populated with families of bunnies, foxes, frogs and cats within the Minor Arcana, while all manner of animals govern the forest in the Majors.White old bear lumbers in the cold, illumined lantern leading the way through the snow. Crocodile Grandmother presides over disputes among the forest creatures, while Johnny Porcupine drives a careening…
Don’t pass up this little gem! I came across this Taiwanese deck a few years ago on ebay before it was released by Lo Scarabeo and fell in love with it’s images. There is something very engaging about it’s playful, bright and almost dreamy imagery that draw you in immediately. But what brought me back time and time again to using it in readings (both for myself and others) was the storybook like quality of the cards in layouts. The colors weave from dark to light, and from soothing greens and blues, to cheerful yellows and pinks; creating both contrast when opposed, and unity when placed together. When looking for “THE” deck,(and I know we’ve all been there) I was often disappointed by one or two cards that really took me out of a reading. The colors of a Magician’s robes were dull, or a Lovers card depicted two dejected looking, emaciated forms. I feel like sometimes a tarot deck comes with the illustrator’s own emotional baggage, (for better or worse) and can really throw off your intuitive understanding…
Wonderful quirky cards! I normally don’t write reviews for products. After a while, they all sound the same and don’t add any real substance. However, since this card set had two such wildly disparaging reviews, I thought I’d throw in my two cents.I purchased these cards almost two years ago as a birthday present to myself. They are wonderfully eclectic and fun to study. Animals obviously replace human representation, with frogs waving Wands, rabbits raising Cups, cats wielding Swords, and foxes playing with PentaclesApparently, there are now TWO printings of this deck – the original from China (2005), and the reissue from Lo Scarabeo (2008). The version being sold on Amazon is the re-issued set. My cards, being from the original issue, are from a study stock. The borders are slightly different as well…more of the text is in Chinese with very minimal translations. This has quickly become my favorite of my four tarot decks.Personally, I would go for the original issue if…