Amazon.com now stocks the Tarot of the Elves companion novella! If you were kind enough to purchase the deck early -- before kits were available -- you can now order the novella (which includes the companion guide) by itself.
The Tarot of the Elves -- like a human life! -- incorporates moments that are alternately comforting and chilling, friendly and frightening, placid and passionate. Sometimes, life leads us to treasure ... and sometimes, to terror. In order to reflect the infinite variety of circumstances a reader might be facing, the Tarot of the Elves must reflect every moment -- good, bad, or neutral.
It's inevitable, then, that some folks, after seeing nothing more than one or two of the spookiest cards (the Priestess, for example, or the Five of Swords), will reject the entire deck. That sort of knee-jerk response always puzzles me -- after all, most people don't judge the entire Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot based solely on, say, the Devil and the Ten of Swords!
It was nice, then, to see this post by Eve, a participant on the Yahoo Group "All Things Tarot," who, curious about "the terrible looking images" she had seen, purchased the deck to find out what was really going on:
"I relearned an old lesson: never make judgments without all the information. Tarot of the Elves is a fascinating deck. Mark McElroy has done with this deck something I've yearned to see."
Aeclectic Tarot community member Mariana was kind enough to share her first impressions of the Tarot of the Elves with others on the AT Forum [link]:
Each suit tells a story in itself ... of how the quality of the suit is taken to extremes and becomes destructive ... It's amazing how each story is coherent as a narrative, describing a very recognizable and archetypal struggle, and at the same time manages to stay close to the RWS meanings of individual cards!
... I really liked the way each story is in one dominant colour, with hints of other colours coming in when other suits influence a card. Especially in the courts this becomes clear -- for instance, all the queens of the other colours have more blue (the color of Cups) mixed in with the color of their suit.
So far I'm really enthusiastic ... It is very easy to understand the cards; they're full of feeling.
Mariana goes on to both praise and question several features of the deck. Thanks, Mariana, for being open to the Tarot of the Elves' unique voice ... and for sharing your thoughts with the AT Community!
The Tarot of the Elves is now the 8th best-selling deck at Alida, the online Tarot store well-known for getting new releases quickly into the hands of buyers around the world!
The Tarot of the Elves is based on an entirely new mythology: the myths of the Elves of New Alfheimr. As a result, the illustrations on the cards can, especially at first glance, feel strange or unusual.
But don't panic! While the stories behind the cards may be unfamiliar, the Tarot of the Elves is, first and foremost, a Tarot deck. Because you're familiar with Tarot -- and especially if you're familiar with the Rider-Waite deck -- you already possess the keys you need to unlock (and enhance!) the meanings of each and every card in the Tarot of the Elves.
To illustrate what I mean, let's take a detailed look at two cards that, at first glance, appear to be radically different ... but which, when studied, have a great deal in common: the Two of Wands from both the Waite-Smith Tarot and the Tarot of the Elves.
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