Celtic Dragon Deck

DJ Conway & Lisa Hunt

Card size - arrg, cant find tape measure
Card Quality - Good quality card stock. Constant shuffling and daily draws over years with no dog earred edges or warping.

Minors - Pips are fully illustrated.

Companion Book - excellent. Quick reference at front of book to key word description of all cards. Full write up with a good half page to full page detail on each card. Also contains background on dragons, spells to work with the cards and meditations to work with your dragon guides.

Review

Let me preface my comments with "I am biased". I absolutely love this deck, it is my main working deck and has been my constant companion for years now. I have had dragons in my life since, forever and had this deck thrown off the shelf at me when I went looking for my first deck.

Each card is beautifully illustrated by Lisa Hunt with dragons, sometimes accompanied by renaissance styled men and women. This deck emphasises the relationship between human and their dragon guides. The colours are vibrant, yet gentle and each card is full of celtic imagery and hidden sybols. To this day, I still find something new each time I look at a card.



The elements are Fire = swords, Wands = Air, Cups = Water and Pentacles = Earth. Two cards have been re-named. The heirophant is now The High Priest and the devil, now Chains. These changes work well for me. Swords are for me a relic of action, therefore fire, whereas wands have always had the association, for me, of thought, so air. The heirophant and devil cards don't have much relevance in my path, so their re-naming is appropriate for me.

The energy of this deck is amazing. It likes to give direction, there's not a lot of pussyfooting around a subject when working with dragons. The cards tend to tell you what the problem is and what you need to do to fix it. On occassion, I have not "got the hint" from a reading, the next reading will be a card related slap up the back of the head.

I would not hesitate to recommend this deck. It's a beauty. If you have an affinity for dragons, this deck will not just call your name, it will grab you by the scruff of the neck and not let you go.

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Wizards Tarot

Corrine Kenner
John J Blumen


Card size - arrg, cant find tape measure
Card Quality - Decent quality card stock. Little thinner than desired, cant tell how they are going to last as they were bought yesterday.

Minors - Pips are fully illustrated.

Companion Book - Very good. Full write up on each card. Gives a spread for each of the majors. The deck is based around a fictional wizarding school and the book has a bit of storytelling involved. You are enrolled in the school and the tarot is your tool for divination. It's a fun idea and makes the book a joy to read.

Review

These are just my first impressions, but this is a deck I have lusted after since I first saw images of it. When choosing this deck, I was confronted with 5 of my "wish list" decks, including two by Ciro Marchetti. Can we say "torn". In the end, I closed my eyes, moved the boxes around so I didn't know which was which and laid my hands on each box. One box gave of an incredible amount of heat, so this one came home with me.

The minors are sorted into house groups. The elements are Fire = Wands, Cups = Water, Swords = Air, Pentacles = Earth. The fool is The Initiate, death is Transfiguration (which I love), temperance is The Alchemist, devil is The Dark Lord.

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Tarot Favole

Victoria Francis

Card size - Small, borders so the actual size of the image is very narrow
Card Quality - Good quality card stock. Has a plastic feel to it, which is a little off putting at first, but that might just be because they are brand spanking new.

Minors - Pips are symbolic

Companion Book - Dreadful. Do yourself a favour and burn the tacky little multi-lingual generic introduction leaflet. It will just annoy the heck out of you if you start to read it. The names of the minors have been changed to fit the artwork, yet this is not mentioned in the book ... USELESS.


Review.

I am a fan of Victoria Francis art. This deck is a visually stunning piece of art work. For me, it also works well as a tarot deck.

The elements are Fire = Butterflies, Crosses = Air, Cups = Flowers and Pentacles = Masks. Pages are Knaves. The leaflet that accompanied the book described Swords, Wands, Cups and Pentacles, which was frustrating and annoying. I sat down with the Knave, Knight, Queen and King for each suit and got a feel for their associations. Checked on the net after sorting them and my perceptions were in line with the accepted elemental associations. Card 8 is Justice and card 11 is Strength and there is no explanation for this changes.

Victoria Francis artwork is the whole basis of this deck. Her artwork is dark gothic, beautiful busty vampiress, tall dark and brooding vampire, heartbroken maidens, misty cemeteries. All very evocative and seductive.



I have done a couple of readings with this deck. It was surprisingly accurate. I'm not getting a burst of energy from this deck, though I believe with the right reading and a little love, it will come to life.

I believe that this deck will work for the right person. It is not a deck for beginners as the pips are symbolic and the handbook is so incredibly bad. For an experienced reader, with a love of the gothic, it should blossom.

If Victoria Francis had collaborated with a tarot expert to do an accompanying book, I think this deck would have been HUGE.

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The Truth-Seeker's Tarot

David Fontana

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Shadowscapes Tarot

Stephanie Pui-Mun Law

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The Faeries Oracle

Brian Froud
Jessice Macbeth

These are no "tinkerbell fairies". These are earthy, robust Fae with a wicked sense of humour and lust for life. They laugh with you, at you and encourage you to laugh at yourself. They strip away the shadow self you project to the world and make you face your innermost being, then help you to accept who you are.

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Wisdom of the Hidden Realms

Colette Baron-Reid

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Wisdom of Avalon

Colette Baron-Reid

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The Answer is Simple

Sonia Choquette

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Ask your Guides

Sonia Choquette

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