Deck Review: Murder of Crows Tarot

Corrado Roi (art) and Charles Harrington (writer), Murder of Crows Tarot. Torino, Italy: Lo Scarabeo, 2020. (Link to Llewellyn, US distributor). 

Genre: Tarot decks

Subgenre: crows, shadow work, spells and magic, folklore

Format: Kit with small paperback book and 78-card deck

Source: I own this one  

 

The Hierophant-V 

I first used this deck in May 2025. This deck kit includes a small paperback book and the 78-card deck. In typical Lo Scarabeo fashion, the book is written in multiple languages: English, Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Russian. On a positive note, the text is written by Charles Harrington, who also wrote the small book for the Tarot V (review link) and the companion book for the Tarot of the Vampires (review). The small book for this deck has 128 pages; 57 pages are in English.  

The small book is arranged as follows: 

• Your Journey Among the Crows Begins. . . . A brief introduction.
• Listening to the Wisdom of the Crows. A brief instruction on how to read and interpret the cards. 
• Structure of the Tarot. Here it goes over the basic structure of a Tarot deck. 
• How Does Tarot Work? This is brief instruction on how to formulate a question. 
• Spreads. We get a basic 3-card spread and the 7-card Counting Crows spread. 
• The Tale of the Crow. This describes how to do some storytelling with the deck. 
• Journeying to the Realm of the Inner Shadow. A small section on doing shadow work with the deck. 
• The Lore of the Crow. 
• The Tarot as a Tool of Spellcraft.  This offers some brief guidance on doing spells with the deck. This, for me, may be worth exploring further. 
• Meanings and Keywords. A bit on how to interpret the keywords. 
• Reversals. 
• A Note Concerning Masks. A brief explanation on the presence of masks in some of the cards. 
• Major Arcana. You get about a paragraph of meaning and a small list of keywords per card. 
• Minor Arcana. Text is as in the Major Arcana. 

Can you use the cards without the book? I suppose you could, but I would strongly suggest reading the book. Though one or two parts could be combined, ,the book overall is well written and has good information. This is not one of those generic little white books you find in other decks. The book here complements and enhances the deck. It tells the lore and stories of crows and how to do some magic and divination with them. The card meanings are solid and connect back to the crows. It is a small book, but it packs a lot of good ideas in it. 

Seven of Pentacles

 The cards are dark and beautiful. The art is done in black and white. The artist makes great use of color tones, shadows, shading, and light to make the art stand out. The art is very expressive with careful attention to detail. It gives plenty to intuitive readers. The art does stay close to Rider Waite Smith (RWS) system, so it can work well  if you read in RWS. However the deck is not a straight RWS clone. There are some differences from traditional RWS. 

I found that I can read very well with this deck. The art offers depth, and it draws you in. These are cards you can spend time looking at. They can work well for meditation. They can also work well for shadow work and other dark work. This is also a deck I would add to my list of Tarot decks for the Hard Times.  For me, it is a responsive deck that works well for readings, especially for serious topics and issues. 

The cards measure about 4 3/4 inches by 2 3/4 inches. The cards have a soft glossy finish, but they shuffle with relative ease. The Major Arcana are identified with a small Roman numeral. Minor Arcana are identified by suit symbol and Arabic numeral or court symbol. 

Overall, I really like this deck, and I highly recommend it. I did rotate decks at the end of the month, but this was a deck I wanted to keep using longer. I look forward to working with it again down the road. This is one I would buy a back up copy. 

5 out of 5 stars

This kit qualifies for the following 2025 Reading Challenge: