Let Jareth, Sarah, Hoggle, and other beloved characters from Jim Henson's Labyrinth guide your tarot practice with the official Labyrinth Tarot Deck.
Characters from Jim Henson’s beloved classic Labyrinth try their hand at tarot in this whimsical take on a traditional 78-card tarot deck, which reimagines Jareth, Sarah, Hoggle, and other denizens of Goblin City in original illustrations based on classic tarot iconography. Featuring both the Major and Minor Arcana, the set also comes with a helpful guidebook with explanations of each card’s meaning, as well as simple spreads for easy readings. Packaged in a sturdy, decorative gift box, this stunning deck of tarot cards is the perfect gift for Labyrinth fans and tarot enthusiasts everywhere.
A quick history lesson before we get into the review. Tarot began as a card game, no different from poker or Go Fish, in Europe in the 15th century (ish, dates are hazy.) It didn't start being used for predicting the future until around the 18th century. The most popular version is the Rider Waite Smith; most decks use those ideas, interpreted to suit the theme of the deck. There are plenty of non RWS decks out there, but beginners are usually advised to start with RWS as they can then apply their skills across literally thousands of decks.
A tarot deck is divided in 22 Major Arcana cards and 56 Minor Arcana cards divided across four suits. Cards in the Minor Arcana can be pips...so the seven of wands would literally show seven wands...or pictorial...so the seven of wands would show, probably, someone defending themselves against seven wands. Beginners are advised to chose a pictorial deck, as they're easier to learn, but of course they don't have to.
I'm leaving out a lot of nuance, but this is enough for our purposes today.
If you grew up in a certain era, you have definitely seen Labyrinth. If you haven't seen it, you're missing something. One of Jim Henson's non-Muppet movies, this was a who's who of talent at the time, with George Lucas, David Bowie, Terry Jones and Sarah Connolly all involved. There are only two main human characters and a couple of side characters who are human. Everyone else is a muppet of varying complexity. And although it wasn't specifically planned at the time, they map very well onto the traditional archetypes of Tarot.
The box is a little larger than standard Tarot card size. The lid fits down over it from the top, and although you can't see it in that picture, the owl and the word Labyrinth are slightly raised. The sides feature different characters from the movie. The sides of the inner box have a labyrinth design.
When you lift the lid off, the first thing you see is the guidebook, which fits perfectly in the box. The pages are a lovely smooth feel and the text is very legible.
The cards themselves sit in a cutout inside the box, with a ribbon to help get them out without bending. The cutout is patterned after Baby Toby's romper suit.
The back of the cards feature this eye catching design, patterned on the shields carried by the Gate Guards. You can see it's not reversible, so you would know if your cards were reversed. Personally that isn't a big deal, but I know that some readers prefer not to know until they turn the card over.
The cards themselves have a nice, slightly smooth feeling. The last deck I got from this company had an issue where the cards clung together, making it very difficult to shuffle. These cards shuffle better, but still need a little concentration when you're picking one up. However, I can already feel the difference after a few days of handling and shuffling, and I think with enough use they'll be perfectly smooth.
The characters are really cleverly folded into the traditional Tarot illustrations, as you can see here with The Fool/Sarah.
They're really done very cleverly. I didn't know how they'd depict some of the cards, but they were able to do it with such little effort I can't believe I was ever worried.
They did slightly alter three of the names to make them fit; The Lovers are now The Dancers, Death has become Fate and The Devil is The Demon.
There are two images of Jareth (technically). In one of them his eyes are too small to see, but in this one they've carefully reproduced his eyes. It's such a clever little detail.
The Minor Arcana are pips, rather than illustrations. It's the first deck I've tried with fully pipped Minors, and I wasn't sure how well I'd like them. However, I really like these. They're on a lovely creamy background and the pips are all a little bit different from each other, it's not just the same item repeated over and over. As with the only other deck by Minerva I've tried, the Minors have specific names; Wands are Poles, Cups are Pots, Swords are Feathers and Pentacles are Junk. This all suits the Labyrinth asethetic very well, as all of those items are in evidence throughout the Labyrinth. It takes a short time to get used to the suits, but I just about have it down now after maybe a couple of hours study, so it wouldn't be a big deal.
The Aces and Court Cards in the Minors are illustrated, but all the rest are pips.
I spoke briefly about the book already, but I'm going back to it. It starts with a foreward by Brian Froud, the designer on the movie and the man who created all of the characters and props used. There's a brief intro to Tarot and an explanation of your deck, and then it moves into explaining the cards. The Major Arcana each take two pages, one with a full page image of the card and the other with a brief description and explanations of the meanings both upright and reversed. The Minor Arcana (arranged with Court Cards first) have the image and meanings all on the same page, so the image is smaller. I love that it has the images, as it means I can study a meaning without having to look for the card in the deck if I just want a quick check. The Courts are described mostly as people rather than situations.
After the meanings there's a section on taking care of your deck and preparing for readings. It emphasises that the rules only count if they work for you and that you should feel free to experiment and find your own style. I love a guidebook that's easy like that. There are three spreads designed for this deck; Things Aren't Always What They Seem, You Have No Power Over Me, and The Door Knocker's Conundrum. These are important moments in the movie and it's nice to see them recreated this way.
The only, very tiny issue I have; a couple of cards are based on characters who did appear in the movie, but weren't given a backstory there. Brian Froud wrote a book giving many of the characters stories and personalities and Minerva has used those instead. It makes them a little less intuitive, but I'll get used to them, and it would be hard to do a whole deck with only featured characters.
All in all I love this deck; it handles nicely, the images are wonderful and clear enough that my mild face blindness didn't kick in, the guidebook is great. I'm going to keep coming back to this deck for a long time to come.
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