Celtic

The record

This is the first Tarot deck that I bought, soon after it was published in 1990. As a longtime student of Celtic art, archaeology, and especially folklore, I was as taken with the Celtic mythological aspects as I was with Tarot. Indeed, I did not pick up Tarot studies for another ten years. This review is thus from the perspective of a folklore scholar with a longstanding interest in Celtic studies who is also, more recently, a Tarot seeker and enthusiast. This is a sturdy, solid deck of cards that will serve Tarot readers for many years. It is a standard 78-card deck with 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana, divided into suits called cups, coins, swords, and wands. It’s a beautiful deck that I think will be of interest to collectors and lovers of Celtic art. It presents some challenges to readers, however, and will therefore be most useful to advanced practitioners. The book that comes with the deck, furthermore, contains a fair bit of nonsense about the Celts and about Tarot, along with its relatively good descriptions of individual cards and their meanings. Let’s begin with the art. Courtney Davis paints beautiful pictures in a style influenced primarily by early medieval Hibern

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