Review: The Llewellyn Tarot

A caveat:  this is the first genuine Tarot deck I've worked with in any depth, so my opinions are not based on years of experience comparing and contrasting the merits and pitfalls of various decks.  These are just my initial impressions after reading with the Llewellyn Tarot nearly every day for two weeks.

The Llewellyn Tarot is named after, you guessed it, the grand patriarch of Llewellyn Worldwide, Llwellyn George.  A Welsh immigrant, he came to America and started a small press that still exists over a century later.  To commemorate the founding of that press, Llewellyn commissioned this deck, which combines traditional Tarot symbolism with Welsh mythology.

The deck and its accompanying book were both created by Anna-Marie Ferguson, who also created Legend: the Arthurian Tarot.  It comes packaged beautifully in an outer box with the book and a gorgeous gold beaded bag.  I think the bag may be my favorite thing about the deck, which shouldn't be taken as a slight against the deck, but a testimony to how much I love pretty bags.

Things I Like About the Deck (Besides the Bag)

1 ~ The Major Arcana are absolutely beautiful.  They're done in lush, color-rich watercolor with exquisite detail; the High Priestess and the Horned God in particular spoke to me immediately, go figure. 

2 ~ The Minors, while done in a less finished and flatter style, are still very pretty, and I particularly like the stormy background colors in the Swords, and the oceanic imagery they contain.  The color palette of the Minors is very soothing to the eye, and though it lacks the detail of the Majors it's still very evocative.  The Minors look more like studies than finished paintings.  They have pretty textbook Rider symbolism with a few divergences that so far haven't bothered me.

3 ~ The deck came with two supplemental cards depicting interesting alternatives to the old Celtic Cross:  Llew's Spread (to illuminate a situation), and the Red Dragon Spread (to help overcome an obstacle), both of which I have found useful, although I finally got frustrated with the Dragon Spread and said "Screw this, I'm making my own."  For simpler questions than mine, however, both included spreads work quite well.

Things I Don't Like About the Deck

1 ~ This is me being nitpicky, but on some of the Major Arcana, getting from the associated myth to the Tarot meaning was a bit of a stretch--no, a bit of a contortion.  The imagery of the Moon card, for example, is wonderful, but the myth of Bloudwedd hardly seems to apply; I still can't quite get my mind around what a maiden being raped and a magic well flooding a valley to avenge her has to do with the Temperance card.   I can see where the author's going with it, but it's still kind of a stretch.  It seems like of all the stories to come from that culture there might have been one that fit better, although the beauty of the card itself makes up for a bit of mythological acrobatics. 

If I cared more about Welsh mythology this would probably bother me a lot more than it does; for the most part I ignore the book that came with the cards and just work with the Tarot symbolism.  Some, like Judgment, take a bit of explaining to people who are more used to Rider clones.  I certainly can't pronounce a lot of the names--it's my opinion that at some point the Welsh people must have visited Hawaii and left behind all their vowels, so now they have to make do with lots and lots of y's.

2 ~ The cards are really slippery, as in, they fly everywhere every time I shuffle them.  I've had plenty of new decks over the years but I've never had one quite this slick; I can only hope that time will erode the plastic coating enough that they'll stay put.  They're also just a tiny bit too big for my hands, but that's because I have short stubby fingers like Lisa Simpson.

3 ~ One last thing, and again this is purely my own issue, not that of the deck itself--as a Wiccan I find it damn near impossible to mentally swap Swords and Wands in the Fire and Air department.  A sword is a forged metal weapon, for goodness' sake!  How does a stick relate to Fire, other than making great kindling?  I can't do it.  While the numbered Minor Arcana each have their own individual meanings, I've started switching the Court cards for Swords and Wands to make them fit my own beliefs; this may be some sort of high Tarot blasphemy, but well, I don't care.  I tried setting aside my view of the universe just for the sake of this one deck and couldn't. 

Overall I'm enjoying the deck, and it has been easy to learn on.  The results it's giving me make sense so far, even though I'm far more used to the inscrutable spirituality of the Faery Oracle or the intuitive leapfrogging of the Runes.  I've also had pretty good luck reading for other people with this deck, and started getting accurate results right out of the box.  Obviously different people will have different experiences with something so personal, but I recommend giving the Llewellyn deck a try, or at least adding it to your collection.

Click here for more card images.

Comments

[Inanna]

I'm starting to get the whole swords and air thing, because I think of swords as, metaphorically, being tools of intellection and discernment. But wands/fire always trips me up. Fortunately for me, in the deck I use most often, the Zerner-Farber, the swords are in a blue pallette and the wands are done in fiery orange. That's how I keep their associations straight! And in my favorite, the Gaian Tarot, she dispenses with swords, cups, etc. altogether and just uses the elements.

But I hear ya.

[Liorah Lleucu]

The Llewellyn Tarot is my first tarot deck. I absolutely love it and have had good results with it "right out of the box" thus far. I'm a novice to both tarot and Welsh mythology (although I strongly identify with it as one part of my ancestry). Consequently, the issues you bring to light are not ones I noticed. I tend to interpret and divine through a kabbalistic lens anyway (my particular area of expertise), so I can "fill in the gaps" where my knowledge of Welsh mythology lacks. I really appreciate this overview of the deck. It is very helpful to me, particularly as a newbie to tarot. Thanks!

BTW, I love the bag too! :)

[Deana in Ohio]

Since I learned Tarot first, years and years before Wicca, I couldn't get my head around Swords as fire and Wands as air. I still can't. Swords are tools of the intellect, discernment, wisdom that "cuts both ways" like a double-edged blade. Wands are wood, which is alive (on most decks the wands are blooming). Life itself is of the fire element (I mean, you start getting cold almost as soon as you die).

I guess it's just whichever you learn first is what gets stuck in your head. My mom studies feng shui and she uses the Chinese five element system, in which metal and wood are each an element, and, most bizarre to the Western mind, there is NO AIR!!!

Anyway, I love your website and your books. The Llewellyn Tarot is a lovely deck to learn on (and that bag was a wonderful addition! Now they've set a high standard...)

[Liorah Lleucu]

Also just FYI, the wands/fire and swords/air associations fit very well with kabbalah, so perhaps this is another reason these cards work so well for me. Some of the symbolism may incorporate a kabbalistic element.