The Goblin Market Tarot

About The Goblin Market Tarot

An outstanding new Tarot from John Matthews inspired by the Victorian poem Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti, beautifully illustrated by the renowned artist Charles Newington. The only Tarot to explore fully the whole world of faeries, including its more shadowy aspects – the goblins.

This is a faery tarot with a difference, uncompromising in its portrayal of faeries as they really are: sly, frequently cruel, cleverer than humans and full of secrets, rather than the whimsical, sweet-natured creatures beloved of the Victorians and the New Age. It’s the world of Christina Rossetti’s The Goblin Market, a place where all denizens of the Otherworld come to buy and sell, to mingle and exchange gossip. It is a place unsafe for humans. But imagine if you could look through a window onto the scene, as Christina Rossetti does in her poem? Imagine the beings you would see there … 

Here is a tarot of wit and wickedness, of challenge and uncertainty, of wonder and truth. This 80-card deck with 176-page guidebook offers as the Major Arcana a gallery of strange and wonderful creatures, from the Faery Queen to the Wiseman, plus intriguing motifs from the poem, such as the Secret Way and the Fallen Tree. Minor suits represent magical implements, fruits, flowers and elements. Enter a haunted, magical world – an enchanting landscape of falling towers, crumbling walls and tangled woods, of streams tumbling amongst mossy stones, of fallen trees and bones threaded with vines and spiked roses. Prepare to be enspelled … and to discover the answers to your questions and dilemmas.