The Magical Menagerie, illustrated by Eric Hotz, text by Mike Leslie

Reviewed by Serena Brink

Get ready to explore the fascinating world of the medieval bestiary with its animals and magical beasts when using this card and book set. The author's interpretation of the cards provides information on each animal or magical beast, the elemental influences, relevant Celtic legends, and the perspective of Jungian psychology. The Magical Menagerie's unique combination of mythical beasts and familiar creatures will be an attractive addition to your divinatory tools and will add to your knowledge of animal and elemental magic. Newcomers to divination, may find this combination of the familiar and the otherworldly a fascinating reminder of the world they left behind in childhood - a world essential to the creative adult mind, one that inspires the imagination and renews the creative spirit.

This is the ideal animal card deck for those who like to weave the magical and mundane together to create new insights and perceptions. Examples of the illustrations are on the box, and before buying this deck it is important to determine whether you like them or not. Art is very much a matter of personal taste, and as I didn't find the illustrations particularly appealing at first (although they have grown on me), I showed them to a range of different people.  What I found really interesting about the responses to the illustrations was that the artists tended to be the most enthusiastic about them.  Responses from the artists ranged from 'these illustrations remind me of my childhood, I love them'; 'the animals show awareness of the observer and as a result they are very engaging'; 'I like the way the dark outlines make the figures stand out'; to 'they are wonderful - so medieval'. Non-artists didn't always find them very appealing, as the colours are a bit subdued on the whole. The cards I really like are the owl, swan, seal, hare, otter, salmon, phoenix, and cat. I find the cow really dull - its bovine qualities very clearly communicated, and the pony rather jug-headed.

According to the book accompanying the cards, a bestiary is a treatise on real and mythological animals and was a very popular in the middle ages. A bestiary is based on the ancient system of magical elements, and that is what makes this a magical menagerie - it is based on one of the basic building blocks of magic - the idea that the world is composed of four basic elements and everything is a combination of these forces. The fifth element is obviously transcendent, the substrata from which all material elements arise, and is called spirit or quintessence, and there is a card representing it in this card deck.

The mythical creatures include the unicorn, gryphon, phoenix, and dragon, as well as elemental forces such as the gnome, undine, sylph and salamander. Composite creatures such as the centaur, mermaid and satyr complete the mythical elements within this set of cards. Both domestic and wild animals complete the set of creatures featured in this engaging deck. The domestic animals include the cow, horse, dog, cat and pig, while the wild animals range from birds such as the eagle and owl, mammals such as the fox, otter, wolf and hare to fish and frog, with the strange artificial entity called a fetch completing the set.

The book is thorough and well-written. The text gives background information on the animal/beast whether fabulous, tame or wild, and then evokes its significance through a description of its nature and relevance to our inner and outer worlds in a language that includes psychological as well as magical interpretations of the animal/beast. Pertinent and insightful divinatory meanings are given for each of the cards.  The book is useful and interesting whether you are just paging through it for information on the animals, elements or 'fabulous beasts' or are using it for divination. My only criticism is the repetition in places of the phrase "and is one of the most familiar of the fabulous beasts".

The book references a number of perspectives and traditions when explaining the animals. These include Jung's ideas of the four temperaments, the medieval world view, the influence of ancient Greece, astrology, the influence of elements in everyday life, and the Celtic tradition. When it is relevant, the Arthurian tales in which animals feature as powerful spiritual influences on the lives of the heroes and heroines are recounted, for instance, the White Hart appears at Arthur's wedding to Guinevere, and he is told to pursue it by Merlin in order to avoid dishonour. In another tale, the White Hart is accompanied by four lions as it roams through the forest of King Galafres.

If you like the card illustrations then I can recommend 'The Magical Menagerie'. I enjoyed using the cards and used them for divination over a period of two weeks before reviewing them. I found that they usually provided a new and interesting perspective on a variety of situations and were on some occasions illuminating.