The Fairy Ring: An Oracle of the Fairy Folk
by: Anna Franklin 

ISBN 0-7387-0274-9
Boxed kit includes 6 x 9, 240 pp. book, 60-card deck

Price $29.95

There just aren't enough glowing words to express my appreciation for this deck.  This is one of the few times I've actually wished myself multilingual to have more words at my disposal for praising incredible work.

As a rule, it takes a great deal to impress me in regard to Tarot decks, in a world where decks are cranked out without much heart or spirit in them purely in the interest of commercialism.  This deck is the rare exception and is even more remarkable in that it also bucks another pet peeve of mine:  the use of computer generated artwork in Tarot.  I have consistently favored hand-created artwork, but this deck is so finely tuned to the spirit and so delightfully illustrated that I fell in love, complete with cooing and purring, at first sight.

I have actually used this deck in practice and it has worked extremely well, both in the way of inspiring intuitive reading (since it does not follow a traditional Rider Waite interpretational progression) and in the use of the delightful accompanying book.  The frames of the cards are decorated seasonally, which I didn't noticed until about my 3rd or 4th examination of the deck. 

The book provides a wonderful narrative description of each card, including the mythology behind the illustration as well as it's interpretive value, upright and reversed.

The deck includes 60 cards rather than the traditional 78, which includes four white cards depicting recommended spreads and eight "Fairy Festival" cards, representing the 8 Pagan holidays.  The deck is one of those rare moments where it all just comes together and works.  I couldn't resist sharing some of these lovely illustrations with you:

Five pentacles out of five

Only because it's going to
look hokey if I give it 10 out of 5.
 

Review by Katrina Rasbold