Deck Review: Dark Fairytale Tarot

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​Fairytales have a way of capturing our imaginations from the time that we are small children. When we grow up fairytales fall away or we learn the dark origins of beloved tales. What happens when those dark tales get turned into a tarot deck?

I ordered A LOT of decks this past week, and this one was one of the ones I looked forward to the most. It is a Lo Scarabo deck, so it comes in a box just the right size for the cards and LWB. Nice color on the box and it holds up pretty well to the level of movement it is getting in my shop.

I opened the box up and went straight to the little white book, just to see if they have the typical interpretations. All pretty simple and straightforward - but the nice thing about Lo Scarabo decks is that they typically have multiple languages. This one is no exception with English, Italian, Spanish, French and German. No big surprises here, with a single spread in the book that is fairy focused. The box also contains a card for a discounted membership for Tarosophy the worldwide Tarot Association.
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The cards themselves are around 4.5 x 2.5 , which for me is a really nice size with my itty bitty hands! The card stock is pretty good too, and I have had no issues with the cards sticking or not shuffling well. On the back of each card is an elaborate Celtic knot background, perfectly centered with no discernible up or down. This makes them great for those who read reversals.

But for the cards themselves I was less then thrilled. I expected fairy tale... you know, princess in distress, prince charming, etc... Maybe I am spoiled by the Grimm Brothers and Hans Christian Anderson but that was the direction that I thought maybe this deck was going to go. And it really just didn't. Yes, it was dark, but was more like "dark fantasy" rather then "dark fairytale".  Some examples of this are the Hierophant and the Devil.
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The Hierophant looks very Lord of the Rings ( a theme that you see on a couple of other cards around the deck) and the Devil looks like Tim Curry's devilish villain from the 1985 movie Legend. Other then that there are a lot of fairies, vampire like fairies, with wolves skulls and ravens featuring pretty heavily.  The cards have Roman Numerals, so if you are not as experienced with the roman numeral system you might struggle.  The minor arcana to me deviate sometimes too far from what I would expect from the pips - which made this deck difficult for me to connect with.  Overall, for me it is a deck that will stay in the collection but won't get broken out for readings on a regular basis.

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