Bill, my husband, immediately took to calling this deck the "Glastonbury Tor-ot" and I can see where he gets the pun.  Named for the famous Glastonbyry Tor in the United Kingdom, this tarot deck seems to me to best be described by saying it is a modern blending of spirituality and philosophy from the days of King Arthur and today.  Subtitled "Timeless Wisdom from the Isle of Avalon," this deck and book set from Weiser Books is brand new this fall and so it may not be as easy to find as it will be in the coming months.

The set is nicely sleeved and packaged and when I opened it up I really thought I would like it more than I do.  It's a nice enough deck, I guess, but it just didn't grab me the way I had hoped.  Considering I waited about six months to get it from the time I saw its prepublication announcement, that made for more of a disappointment.  It's not that it's not a *nice* deck, but I suppose I'm thinking deep down, "not *another* Arthurian deck already."  The artwork is not as good as the pictures I had seen had implied, either.  I may be too harsh a critic, but I think *I* could draw as well, if I had the patience, and I'm no artist at all.

The 22 cards in the Major Arcana bear more or less traditional titles with a set of Arthurian subtitles on each card.  Justice is 8 and Strength 11 according to the Marseille style, but the titles are otherwise more like the Rider-Waite.  Roman numerals are used.  The card images are bordered in black and the titles are at the bottom, with the subtitling under them.  The titles with their subtitles are as follows:

0 - The Fool - Percival
I - The Magician - Merlin
II - The High Priestess - Morgana
III - The Empress - Guinevere
IV - The Emperor - Arthur
V - The Hierophant - Joseph of Arimathea
VI - The Lovers - Creiddylad and Gwythyr
VII - The Chariot - The Barge of Avalon
VIII - Justice - Arviragus
IX - The Hermit - St. Collen
X - The Wheel of Fortune - The Glastonbury Zodiac
XI - Strength - Gog and Magog
XII - The Hanged Man - The Fisher King
XIII - Death - Gwyn Ap Nudd
XIV - Temperance - Brigit
XV - The Devil - St. Dunstan
XVI - The Tower - The Tor
XVII - The Star - Bride's Mound
XVIII - The Moon - Chalice Hill
XIX - The Sun - The Grail
XX - Judgement - St. Michael
XXI - The World - The Phoenix

In the Minor Arcana, the four suits used are Swords, Chalices, Staffs and Vesicas.  Vesicas are a circular geometrical mandala incorporating a larger circle with two smaller interlocking circles inside it, with hexagons inside those, forming several triangles.  It is a symbol for energy grounding and balance.  The court titles are King, Queen, Knight and Maid, which gives some gender polarity back to the court system.  The numbered cards have simple but full scenes, and are not merely pips.

The cards themselves are generally standard sized and weight, printed on a good flexible cardstock, with a sticky glossy coating which takes some beating up in order to wear off enough to shuffle without sticking together, but it *does* wear off after a while.  The edges are slick and smooth and the corners well-rounded.  This deck does shuffle and handle fairly well once you've broken in the coating.  The back design is a non-reversible image of Glastonbury Tor at sunrise.  Instead of a little white booklet, the deck comes with a full 165-page book that is actually very, very good.  It describes many spreads well enough to work with even for a beginner, and explains the Arthurian mythology that each card works with well enough to make the meaning easier to learn.  Divinatory meanings are also given.  I was surprised to see that "The Mists of Avalon" by Marion Zimmer Bradley was not listed in the bibliography, since the material used for this deck sounds like it is inspired pretty much directly by it.

I recommend this deck-and-book set for anyone who is especially interested in Arthurian legend, and it seems to make a fairly good relevance of the mythology to modern age, which is a challenge for a lot of decks.  It seems like a beginner could use this deck, but it would probably be harder than starting out with, say, the Rider-Waite.  The meanings and images are less frightening and harsh than the ones in many other decks, and it would make a good deck to use if you don't like negative imagery.

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Review Copyright 1999 by Gina M. Pace

Glastonbury Tarot by Lisa Tenzin-Dolma, 1999
published by Samuel Weiser, Inc. York Beach, Maine
ISBN 1-57863-140-8
retail price: $29.95