the Fey Lowdown

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 05 Jan 2003, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Ophiel	05 Jan 2003
Don't tell anybody, but I find this deck charming. But then, I read comic books and like fantasy art. This deck reminds me a bit of the Enchanted Tarot drawn by by Giacinto Gaudenzi and published by Lo Scarabeo. I like the way the elementals are depicted in the Fey (Fate?) deck, so I will probably get it and add it to my 'guilty pleasures' stack of decks. I am a bit confused about the availability of this deck and perhaps someone in the know can set me straight. First off, I'm in the U.S. It is published by Lo Scarabeo but I don't find it listed on their site as a tarot deck. It seems to be readily available in Europe. Llewellyn lists it as available. Tarot Garden I know is selling it (someone in this thread said so.) Barnes and Noble seems to have some special purchasing agreements with Llewellyn (their shelves are filled with Llewellyn titles, and very few Weiser Redwheel, and they can get any decks from Llewellyn I want, whereas Borders cannot, or will not) Amazon.com shows it as available soon. I think I read it has a March 2003 release date. Has this deck been released in the U.S. yet officially?

Maan	05 Jan 2003
Hi Ophiel i don't know if you can get it in the us yet. But i wnat to congratulate you on you choice this deck wont dissapoint you i think. Its a real tresure!

Violet Gargoyle	05 Jan 2003
I am also in the US, and ordered the Fey Tarot through Barnes and Nobles website. The deck is listed as available, and a check on my order status is saying that my order should ship out in the next day or so (I also ordered a couple of music cds and one of them is of lesser availibility) so I am sure that B&N is the way to go if you want to have the deck in your hot little hands sooner than spring. I have never tried to order anything from Llewellyn directly. No particular reason, I just prefer B&N or Amazon for that total shopping online experience. (I like getting music with nearly any purchase I get of anything else :D ) Not sure, but perhaps Llewellyn has an exclusive distribution deal to Barnes and Noble on this one, it would be a rare case though since usually Borders gets Llewellyn and Lo Scarebeo decks pretty quickly upon US releases. Maybe there will be a book tour with the creators through Barnes and Noble and that might explain the early release with them. My best guess anyway.

firemaiden	05 Jan 2003
Ophiel, why can't I tell anyone? This deck is the hottest thing since sliced bread. This deck is it! Didn't anyone tell you? Why the embarrassment?:* The Lo Scarabeo has not updated their site in centuries. I know, I check it all the time, (picture wolf licking chops, lasciviously) Probably they were too busy creating this deck! If they don't update it soon, I am going to march over to Italy, pick up their website director by the scruff of his neck, boot him over to the local capuccino bar and update the site myself. :D

Jeannette	05 Jan 2003
The Fey set is available; Tarot Garden preorderers should have received their copies as early as three weeks ago. We still have copies in stock, available for immediate shipment. Lo Scarabeo and Llewellyn have put their emphasis on selling the (English-language) deck/book set in North America. I suspect that many European buyers, for whom the Fey would have been available a month earlier than in North America, probably purchased the deck only. -- Jeannette http://www.tarotgarden.com

Maan	05 Jan 2003
Quote: Originally posted by Jeannette and/or Lori I suspect that many European buyers, for whom the Fey would have been available a month earlier than in North America, probably purchased the deck only. -- Jeannette http://www.tarotgarden.com Yes i did :( But what a great thing that we earopeans finally had a something before you USA tarotcollectors ;)

RiccardoLS	05 Jan 2003
Quote: Originally posted by firemaiden The Lo Scarabeo has not updated their site in centuries. I know, I check it all the time, (picture wolf licking chops, lasciviously) Probably they were too busy creating this deck! If they don't update it soon, I am going to march over to Italy, pick up their website director by the scruff of his neck, boot him over to the local capuccino bar and update the site myself. :D It's me :) Thanks for the Cappuccino :) But it's not my fault for the disarray of the website. I got a lot of explanations. Really! :)) It's one of the "we should do something about, and do it soon" things, one never get the time to work on :( Riccardo

RiccardoLS	05 Jan 2003
Regaridng the distribution of LS decks. a) we are usually late on schedule. b) when we ship decks for North America, we ship them all togheter. By ship. That means almost a month before they get to Llewellyn, and then they have to be distributed in the whole of U.S. c) the way Llewellyn (big company) is arranged, the sale dep. doesn't know anything about the deck until they arrive (usually, they don't). d) The large chains of bookstores (B&N - Borders...) get things from LL on their ownbasis, and that may signify additional delay. They have their own contracts and negotiation, that works independently from other chains or shops. So what is available from one of them is not necessarily available form others. (I will have to enquire anyway, why Amazon list the deck available from March) So it's difficult to say when a given product is on stores. Usually any LS deck is available in Europe from 1 to 2 months before it gets to the States. The Fey deck should be now be available wordwide. As a Kit Edition (book and deck) in English speaking countries (UK, US, Canada, Australia, NZ...) and as a deck only, in not English countries. byez, Riccardo

firemaiden	05 Jan 2003
HI Riccardo!, I thought it was you! :D :D :D You do everything!! Do you want chocolate on that?

Jeannette	05 Jan 2003
Quote: Originally posted by Maan ...what a great thing that we earopeans finally had a something before you USA tarotcollectors ;) :) The Europeans get a lot of things before we get them over here in North America. There's still way too many wonderful, European-published decks that get little-to-no direct distribution over here. For reasons that Riccardo has already explained, the delay in receiving Lo Scarabeo products over here is unavoidable. Fortunately, once the decks do arrive at the Llewellyn offices in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul) area, it doesn't take long for us to get them here. The Tarot Garden "warehouse" is located in Des Moines -- only a fast four-hour trip south down Interstate 35, so we receive them by the next business day after Llewellyn reships them to the retailers. :D -- Jeannette http://www.tarotgarden.com

truthsayer	05 Jan 2003
i ordered my fey deck from tarot garden. i like dealing with them better than amazon or barnes and noble b/c they are fast, friendly and i get personalized service instead of having to reason with a automated website for purchasing. as to the fey, i find it a very charming deck. it's reminiscent of the whimsical but very definitely its own deck. i think it would be great to read for children, adolescents, fairy lovers and collectors. there's a world of difference b/t it, the faery ring oracle, greg hoose fae tarot, and brian froud faery oracle. these 3 decks seem to take a deeper look at the dark side of the faery world than the fey. i'm not saying the fey can't give serious readings. it's just a lighter deck and the fey are friendlier.

Ophiel	06 Jan 2003
I visited an Italian site that featured this charming deck and, if I read it correctly, saw that 'fey' translated means 'fate.' Is this true? Me no speakee Italiano.

Cerulean	06 Jan 2003
That's an interesting observation. In the past when I received Lo Scarabeo decks, the English title was a straight English translation. Alidastore.com would have the direct Italian title and later, I or you can do a google translation. If worse comes to worse, I'll ask my Florentine-trained teacher tonight. He sometimes can tell us about slang or vernacular in Italy--for instance, the Florentines don't stand in line at a bakery, they take a number and the call-out isn't "Next in line." The actual English translation is "it touches you,". My teacher was looking around to find out what was going to touch him. What was meant was this was his turn to go up to the counter---the time and place was 'it' that touched him Llewellyn and the English news-speak/PR blurbs speak of the Fey as if it was a name for 'beings', similar to saying Etruscan Tarot or Celtic Tarot... So I will ask the term for Fate or Fey...and Florence being known as the 'San Francisco' of Italy, he might be able to tell us if there is any other modern meaning as well. Best wishes, Mari H.

firemaiden	06 Jan 2003
Well, the Italian word "fata", (of which the plural is "fate" pronouced "fa-tay") just means "fairy". There does appear to be an link however between fate and fairy, as in "the three fates" Here is are histories of both words from the ONLINE ETYMOLOGY DICTIONARY http://www.geocities.com/etymonline/index.html fairy - 13c., from O.Fr. faerie "land of fairies, meeting of fairies, enchantment, magic," from fae "fay," from L. fata (pl.) "the Fates." The slange meaning "effeminate male homosexual" is first recorded 1895. Faerie was introduced by Edmund Spencer as a deliberate archaism in "The Faerie Queen" (1590). Fairy tale (1749) translates Fr. Conte de fées. fate - c.1385, from Latin fata, neut. pl. of fatum "thing spoken (by the gods), one's destiny," from neut. pp. of fari "to speak," from PIE *bha- "speak." The Latin sense evolution is from "sentence of the Gods" (Gk. theosphaton), subsequently "lot, portion" (Gk. moira, personified as a goddess in Homer), later "one of the three goddesses (Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos) who determined the course of a human life."

lunalafey	06 Jan 2003
Fay...Fey....Fae....all the same...sorta. In the case of the deck....it's in reference to faries...but the actual english definition of 'fey' has nothing to do with these little beings.

darwinia	06 Jan 2003
Quote: Originally posted by Ophiel I visited an Italian site that featured this charming deck and, if I read it correctly, saw that 'fey' translated means 'fate.' Is this true? Not according to my Funk and Wagnall's Standard College Dictionary ©1974 (good reference materials are hard to release one's attachment to.) It comes from the French fée which means fairy, which in turn comes from the Old French fae. It is also an archaic Scottish adjective which means either "Foredoomed to die at a certain time, especially suddenly" or "Being at the point of death." This term comes from the Olde English FÆGE (which I capitalized because there is no ASCII character for the ligature in lower case.) I suppose we could translate this as "fate" and make it all work out. Now, I wonder how we could apply this interesting information to a fairy archetype? Perhaps a rousing saga of the fairy Fae-Fae Leafbottom and her quest to prevent her sudden certain death at the hands of a Badger.....

firemaiden	06 Jan 2003
right. But see above-- the origin of the word fairy - from french right, but where did the french word fée come from: --latin - fata so if you go back far enough --- they come together

Jewel	06 Jan 2003
I ordered my copy from a local Barnes & Noble on Thursday and they told me it would take 5 to 11 business days or something awful like that ... If I had only pre-ordered it through Tarot Garden like I usually do ~huge sigh~ ... Riccardo it is wonderful to have you as a member at Aeclectic. I am sure I will have many questions for you once I start working with this deck :)

Ophiel	08 Jan 2003
It was at the Alida site that I found the word 'fate.' However, perhaps I added something to this. Visit the page and look at the banner ad at the top. It features the Fey deck, but in Italian, it is says "Tarocchi delle Fate" and I'm thinking I might have mistaken that for the name of the deck whereas it might be an advertising phrase. http://www.alidastore.com/index.html I hope I have caused no confusion here. JEWEL: That seems more the norm lately when I order Llewellyn products from my local Barnes and Noble. I am convinced that Barnes and Noble has some sort of special purchasing agreements with Llewellyn for two reasons: 1) the shelves are stuffed with Lewellyn books (and very few Weiser Redwheel titles), and 2) they can get me Llewellyn decks that Borders can't get. That *could* just be the special ordering policy at Borders on Tarot decks. However 5 (or sometimes even more!) business days is about right these days for B&N.

firemaiden	08 Jan 2003
NO, IS THE ITALIAN NAME OF THE DECK!!! As I said before! The Italian word " means fairies! !! It means And, your confusion and your question are indeed very interesting, because in fact the english words "fairy" and "fate" evolved from a common latin word.

RiccardoLS	08 Jan 2003
"The Fey tarot" is the English title, while "Tarocchi delle Fate" is the Italian title. The words regarding the fairy world and creatures are very different from Italian to English. maybe Pollux may help me here. While in Great Britain we had a very powerful and nourished folk tradition, in Italy it never developed. First it was missing the Celtic influence at the root of northern folk tales, secondary the Church conditioned to a greater extent education and culture. So the thousand words for fairies, like brownies, pixies, sprites, etc... all get translated with just two words: "folletti" and "spiritelli". The word "fata" on the other side is an Italian word, difficult to translate in English for the lack of a proper concept. It means a female fairy creature with magical powers used for the good. Like the charachter in the Cinderella tale. :) The obvious translation for "Tarocchi delle fate" would have been "Fairy tarot", but they already exist, so we searched for a alternative title. in the end we used the word "Fey" as a substitute of Fairy trying to give the nuance of magical, enchanted tarot as well. Regarding the origin of the word "fata", as aleady said, it has a latin root, and was commonly associated with the "three fates" (the parchs or the norns - see card X the wheel). It is interesting to see that the few remains we have of veneration of this three goddesses in the Roman Empire all cames from the Celtic part of the Empire. Bye, Riccardo [p.s. i just become a uncle. :) and i will be away for about a week to visit my brother and the newborn. see you]

firemaiden	08 Jan 2003
Thank you, that is fascinating. And congratulations Zio Riccardo!

The the Fey Lowdown thread was originally posted on 05 Jan 2003 in the Tarot Decks board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Tarot Decks, or read more archived threads.