Review by Terri Clement
Tarot of the Night by Richard ShadowFox
Published by Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., www.schifferbooks.com
ISBN: 978-0-7643-4551-7
Retail: US $45.00
Ghosts, skeletons and things that go bump in the night, is what you will find in the Tarot of the Night by Richard ShadowFox. Being familiar with his previous Tarot Deck of Heroes, I was anxious to get my hands on this latest body of work. I found a majority of the images hauntingly beautiful. Just know that, with this deck, you will need quite a few candles in your reading room as the images are dark.
This deck and book set is held in a heavy duty cardboard box with magnetic closure, red ribbon pull tab, and stays. The deck is held together with a plastic sleeve.
The cards are larger than a standard deck, measuring in at 3-3/8” wide x 5” tall. The card stock is thick with a bit of a sticky laminate. I had to carefully go through the deck and make sure that they were all separated. While the larger size of the cards make the details easier to see, the size coupled with the thickness of the deck, readers with average and smaller hands will have to adapt their shuffling style if they typically riffle-bridge shuffle. Prior to shuffling, I noticed the upper right corner of the Fool card was separating. The rest of the card edges are smooth. The deck had a bit of a chemical smell coming out of the box, but that seems to be disappearing.
Strength is number VIII and Justice is XI. The suits are Swords, Wands, Pentacles, and Cups. The courts are titled Page, Knight, Queen, and King.
The card backs are reversible friendly, with a black background and a mirrored image of a skeleton torso emerging from a fireball, under a full moon. The suit symbols sit above the moon. A thin red border surrounds the image on both front and back, measuring in ½” on each side and ¾” on the top and bottom. The Major and Minor cards are numbered within the top border and named (Suit for the Minors) on the bottom. The Courts title is in the top border and their suit in the bottom.
The cards in the review copy that I received, both front and back, are slanted just a bit (it is off by about 1/8” – from top to bottom), the front slanting to the right, while the backs of the cards slant to the left.
The High Priestess features a barefoot, dark haired woman, wearing a lace trimmed white satin gown. She is holding an iron gate that leads to the path of an illuminated tower in the background. Is she inviting you in? Or is she keeping you out? The companion book says, “If one knows who they are, does that automatically mean they know who they are not?”
The Chariot appears as a horse drawn, casket bearing hearse as it has made its way behind the cemetery wall. There are a couple of grave markers in the foreground and a castle in the back ground. The companion book says, “All of us have dreams of our future, and when these dreams become goals and ambitions then we begin to take action to realize them. This card defines those actions…”
The Queen of Wands is a fiery red-head, wearing a red gown with a plunging neckline. She is standing in front of a staircase that leads to a window. There is full moon in the night sky. The companion book says, …”flamboyant style of dress, a dramatic entrance, as well as the way they position themselves in an environment will identify them…” And, “…they embrace leadership with excitement that is infectious and are natural trendsetters.”
The 256-page companion book contains an Introduction, black and white images of the cards, upright and reversed meanings, with the cards being separated by Major, Minor and then Courts. The book also contains 3 spreads. The first spread is a 3 card, the second is the Celtic Cross and the third is a 13-card original spread by Richard ShadowFox called The Vincit Omnia Veritas which translates to Truth Conquers All. This spread is designed to be used for self-evaluation.
Those familiar with Rider–Waite–Smith should have no trouble at all using the deck right out of the box. This would be a fun deck for a Halloween style theme party.