Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon, my Darlings.   Today’s post is a Tarot Thursday review of the Labyrinth Tarot Deck written by Minerva Siegel and with art by Tomas Nijo.   Regular readers may be aware that the 1986 Jim Henson film Labyrinth, starring David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly, has been one of my all-time favorite films since childhood.   So, needless to say, I was absolutely thrilled when I received this Tarot deck from my very sweet and thoughtful friend Daisy as a Yuletide Gift this year!   Earlier this year, Daisy watched this film for the first time with my husband Andrew and myself.   That means she knew just how much I would love this deck when she found it.   I wanted to acknowledge this, as Daisy was so thoughtful in gifting me this deck, thanks, Daisy!

Now that I have recounted my little story about how I was gifted this deck let’s get onto the review.    This deck was produced by Insight Editions, a company that produces many novelty Tarot decks based on beloved fantasy properties.   Minerva Siegel has written many of these decks, including this one, The Hocus Pocus Tarot, The Nightmare Before Christmas Tarot (both of which I own, also having been gifted them by Daisy on past holidays actually), and The Supernatural Tarot.   Insight Editions produces these decks in lovely hardcover boxes that neatly store the deck and guidebook.   The Labyrinth deck has the lovely artwork of Sarah, Jareth, and Jareth’s Owl form on the cover.   

I really love the artwork style that was chosen, as it does align well with the film, with the Labyrinth Fae characters and creatures looking very much like they do in the film.   Tomas Nijo designed the more humanoid characters who were played by actors in a stylized way that still retained the appearance of their actors while keeping much of Brian Froud’s original artwork in mind in crafting the cards with the Fae characters that were made using puppetry in the film.   This artwork and style are greatly appreciated by me as a lover of the film and Froud’s artwork!   In fact, I was thrilled to learn that Brian Froud wrote a foreword to the guidebook of this deck.   The foreword is a sweet little introduction recounting some memories of how the film came into being and how he went about creating the characters Sarah would encounter in the titular Labyrinth.   He even gives high praise to the artwork by Tomas Hijo, stating that the cards ‘feel like they’ve been crafted by the goblins themselves…’    I truly love that the original artist gave such high praise to a new interpretation of his work, as it makes this deck feel even more magickal.

The cards are made of good quality card stock, shuffle easily, and have a very natural and slightly muted color palette, which lends to the energy of delving deeply into our own subconscious, which Tarot entreats us to do.   Not to mention that Sarah’s journey in the film is very much a coming-of-age narrative and lends itself well to the Fool’s Journey in Tarot, which is why Sarah is on the Fool card!   As we journey through the deck, it is likely journeying through the Labyrinth, our own inner world version of it, to learn new truths about the self.   This is truly the perfect type of fantasy story to frame a Tarot deck around, as the plot has so much arcane wisdom and spiritual insights within it already.   

I also love the way the plot of the film has been worked into the deck in interesting ways, with Siegel choosing to rename certain cards to align with the film without changing their meaning.   The Lovers became The Dancers (the ones from the iconic masked ball), Death became Fate, The Devil became The Demon, and The Moon features the Peach Sarah bites into in place of a traditional Moon image!   As with all of these novelty pop-culture decks, the suits are renamed to fit the theme.   In this case, they are Poles for Wands, Junk for Pentacles, Feathers for Swords, and Pots for Cups.   The numbered suit cards are very simple, with just that number of objects as the artwork, which I really like for the style of this deck!   I am going to end this review here, as I think I have covered all aspects of the deck pertinent to know about if you are considering purchasing it.   I will finish by stating that it is definitely my favorite novelty deck I have ever owned, as it is a perfect deck for daily use (not as holiday-centric as others, for instance), and the film already had a plot that lent itself well to becoming a very Faery Tarot deck!   I highly recommend this deck to lovers of the film, as it truly does not disappoint.

I hope you have enjoyed this long and rambling review of this truly gorgeous Tarot deck.  Do you own this deck?   Do you want to own it now?   Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Note on Image: The image at the top of this post is a picture I took of myself with this deck!

LINK TO AVALONIAN ROSE FAERY MYSTERIES PATREON: patreon.com/AvalonianRoseFaeryMysteries 

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: I am absolutely thrilled to announce that I will be doing my first-ever Herbal Tea Blending Class on December 29, 2024!   This is a live event hosted at the shop Phoenix Lane.   Here is the link to the event on Facebook if you are interested in learning from me in person: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19hU6vdFm3/

Further Reading/Watching

• Labyrinth Tarot Deck and Guidebook by Minerva Siegel and with art by Tomas Nijo
• Labyrinth (1986)