Robin Wood Tarot Deck Review

The Robin Wood Tarot Review by Michele Jackson

If you would like to purchase this deck, click here.

This deck could be called “Waite-Smith meets Wicca”. It is basically a Waite-Smith clone with a Wiccan flavor. The art is competent, though not great. The coloring is O.K. and some of the cards are quite attractive. The artist seems to have a penchant for blondes as an unusually large percentage of the characters in this deck, both male and female, have yellow tresses. The suits are Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles and the Court Cards are King, Queen, Knight and Page. Most of the cards have the same scenes as the Waite-Smith deck, redrawn in the artists own style. The art has a fairy tale look to it, similar to the Hanson-Roberts, though not as sweet and childlike. There is some nudity in the deck, though the anatomy is questionable. There have been some changes in the Major Arcana; The Magician shows a man dressed as the Horned One, The High Priestess holds a crystal ball, Temperance is a male angel, Judgment shows a woman/phoenix rising from a cauldron, and the Wheel of Fortune shows a woman in various emotional states. These changes seem to be more an attempt to connect the deck to the trappings of Wicca than well thought out symbolism. Why the High Priestess would need a crystal ball eludes me. The booklet that comes with the deck purports to “have included Robin’s own insights, too - the ones she had while designing and drawing the cards.” However the only thing I found in the booklet were short upright and reversed meanings, three spreads and the obligatory advertisements for other Llewellyn products. My opinion notwithstanding, this deck is extremely popular. If you can read with the Waite-Smith deck, you should be able to read this deck right out of the box. Books written for the Waite-Smith should work with this deck as well. I suppose I could recommend it to those who are interested in Wicca or Paganism, but there are better decks for this segment of the population in my opinion, such as Tarot of the Old Path and Reed’s The Witches Tarot. I do like the box though.
: If you would like to purchase this deck, click here.