The Marginal Lenormand

One of my favourite deck illustrators is Anastasia Kashian (Magic Lantern Sybilla, Dinosaures de Marseille, American Gods) and when she revealed that there was a new Lenormand in the works, I was beside myself with excitement.

An advance copy arrived on my doormat a couple of weeks ago, and I am pleased to say that my excitement was justified.

What’s the concept of The Marginal Lenormand? The artwork for this deck is based on the drawings and doodlings that one might find in the margins of painstakingly hand-copied medieval manuscripts.

These little gems have been transformed from idly scribbled margin ephemera to the main attraction, resulting in the Marginal Lenormand being possibly the naughtiest, most irreverent Lenormand that I’ve seen.

And I love it!

What do you get with The Marginal Lenormand when you buy it? First of all, take a look at that box – it’s super sturdy and colourful with a lift off top. Inside you will find the deck and a very comprehensive, full-colour companion book (over 200 pages). And the illustrations on the box give you a good idea of what you will find inside: penis pears and bouquets sprouting healthily from a man’s bottom! It’s perfect for anyone who remembers those slightly risque jokey postcards you (and by ‘you’ I mean ‘I’) used to sneakily look at on beach holidays to Scarborough 🙂

The foreword to the book is by Caitlin Matthews, who is co-creator with Anastasia on the Magic Lantern Sybilla deck as well as a renowned Lenormand reader and author herself. The rest of the book is written by Anastasia and her witty voice perfectly complements these cards.

The cards, it has to be said, are HEWGE compared to a standard Lenormand deck, but as the fairytale wolf might have said ‘all the better to see you with’.

Size matters with Lenormand (and so many other things) and having cards that stand erect at 11.5cm tall and are 7.5cm in girth mean that if you are laying a Grand Tableau, you need a fair old bit of space to lie them out.

This is a 36-card deck, with the addition of a Rebis card which can be used as a wild card or an alternative significator card if the Man or Woman significators maybe need a same sex partner card rather than opposite sex.

The card back shows a couple of contortionists and musicians and, in the tradition of Lenormand, it’s not a reversible image because you don’t read Lenormand cards upside down. Frankly, it’s tricky enough reading them well the right way up!

Take a look at the cards: aren’t they wonderful? Dragons, duelling rabbits and hungry foxes abound!

As you might be able to tell from the above images, the leafy ‘ground’ that the various characters find themselves upon lies at the same level in every card, giving you a consistent landscape over which to tell your Lenormand tale.

They are clearly numbered and helpfully carry the name of the associated playing card in the top banner too.

How do they read? That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?

Kashian has such a good understanding of the Lenormand system that each image absolutely works as it’s supposed to. You could cut the titles off these cards and still read with them.

I’ve been giving small readings to friends with the cards and (for me!) the temptation is strong to start reading the beautifully complex images in the way that one might with a tarot or other oracle deck. But that’s MY problem, not the deck’s.

It’s bawdy and sometimes just outright weird style lends itself to fun readings, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking that it’s some kind of ‘joke’ deck. It absolutely isn’t. It’s a well-constructed deck with joyful artwork that does its job mischievously well.

The world feels quite medieval in many ways at the moment, so get ready to cut through the grey Dark Ages bleakness of 2026 with this vibrant new deck.

On sale now in the US and available from 28 June in the UK.

See Anastasia’s work HERE.