Fairytale

Fairytale Tarot
Karen Mahony, Alex Ukolov & Irena Triskova (Magic Realist Press, 2005)

Review
Shouldn't a tarot about fairy tales be, well, more enjoyable?

There's some obscure stories involved- Libuše was the founder of Prague, apparently. And even familiar ones like Cinderella have little frogs in top hats on them, presumably instead of the more familiar mouse coachmen. Of course, we weren't going to get the Disney versions of classic tales, but there's definitely a need to show off the scholarship here.

Still, the scholarship does mean that there's tales from all over the world. Europe is heavily represented, inevitably, but there's stories from Japan, from the Arabian Nights, and from India.

A standout card, for example, is the Ace of Swords, which is Yu-Kong and the Demon. A splendid six-headed dragon is menacing a swordsman guarding the window.

Some technical problems with the deck don't help either. The thin card stock means it's very easy to drop cards without realising. And there's a noticeable improvement in the shading as of the Two of Coins, compared to the slightly uncertain line work in the rest of the deck, I thought that was a stylistic choice, now I'm wondering if it's a printer problem?

So while this may not be the best deck for children, it's actually a good one for a folklore enthusiast, or a writers looking for a new hook.