Pagan Cats Mini Tarot by Messina & Airaghi — Illustrated Cat Tarot Deck

Short description:

Pagan Cats Mini Tarot by Messina & Airaghi — a 78-card mini tarot deck where every card is illustrated with cats acting out the traditional tarot archetypes in a Wiccan, nature-magic setting. The compact size is perfect for travel or small hands, and the whimsical cat illustrations make this a beloved collector’s deck for feline-loving practitioners and deck enthusiasts.

Description:

Quick Specs

• Publisher: Lo Scarabeo
• Authors: Magdelina Messina (text), Lola Airaghi (artwork)
• Cards: 78, fully illustrated including all minor arcana
• Format: Mini deck with multilingual booklet
• Best for: Cat lovers, pagan practitioners, portable everyday reading, RWS-trained readers

Cats as Familiars and the Witchcraft Tradition

Cats have been associated with witchcraft and magical practice across European history for at least five centuries. In medieval and early modern England, the familiar spirit most commonly described in witch trial records was a cat, particularly a black one, and the animal appeared so frequently in those records that the association became cultural shorthand for the witch's companion. Across Scandinavian folk tradition, cats were linked to the goddess Freya, who drove a chariot pulled by two large cats and whose domain included seidr, the Norse magical practice. In ancient Egypt, the goddess Bastet, depicted with a cat's head, presided over protection, fertility, and the home. The Tarot of the Pagan Cats doesn't draw on a single one of these traditions; it draws on all of them at once, presenting the cat as an inherently magical creature that belongs in a deck built around pagan symbolism.

Artist Lola Airaghi made a deliberate choice that separates this deck from many animal-themed alternatives: the cats are not anthropomorphized. They don't stand upright, wear human clothing, or hold wands in paws they don't have. Instead, the traditional Rider-Waite scenes are reimagined through feline behavior and perspective, and the cats remain entirely themselves. The Justice card features the Egyptian Bast-as-sphinx dispensing judgment. The Magician is surrounded by the four elemental weapons laid out on a table beside a focused white cat. The Devil shows two cats loosely chained to a block engraved with a reversed pentagram. The symbolism is intact; the lens has shifted.

Mini Format: Practical Portability and Discreet Carry

The mini format isn't a novelty gimmick; it's a genuine functional advantage for practitioners who read outside the home. The deck fits in a jacket pocket, a small pouch, or a coin purse, which means it travels without a dedicated bag and reads on whatever surface is available. For someone who pulls a daily card at their desk, gives readings at a friend's kitchen table, or wants a deck they can carry without advertising what's in the bag, the mini size removes practical friction. The black-core cardstock used by Lo Scarabeo gives the cards opacity so that images don't bleed through during shuffling, and the linen-finish box keeps the deck contained securely.

The deck reads with complete structural fidelity to the Rider-Waite system, which means anyone already trained on RWS has an immediately usable deck. Keywords and interpretive layers transfer directly. For new readers, the fully illustrated minor arcana tell the same visual story as the original, just with cats standing in for human figures in the familiar settings. The booklet includes two spreads created specifically for the deck alongside basic card meanings in multiple languages. Browse my full tarot decks collection to compare it with other animal-themed and novelty decks.

Pagan Symbols Layered into the Art

The "pagan" in the title is substantive rather than decorative. Airaghi removed Christian iconography from every card that contained it in the RWS original, replacing stained glass windows with designs featuring elemental weapons and cauldrons, replacing angels in the Lovers and Temperance with non-religious imagery, and redesigning Judgement so that the dead rising from graves becomes a single cat leaving domesticity to follow a starry vision. The triple moon symbol appears on the card backs. Zodiac signs and runic characters appear in the Wheel of Fortune. The cauldron appears both as a background detail and as a symbolic prop across multiple cards. This is a working pagan deck, not just a cat novelty.

How to Use the Pagan Cats Mini Tarot

The Tarot Fellow Standard

I carry this deck because it's genuinely good at two things most cat decks aren't: it takes the cat-as-familiar tradition seriously as a symbolic framework, and it makes a fully functional 78-card RWS deck fit in a pocket. If you already know how to read Rider-Waite, you can pick this up and read with it immediately. If cats are part of your practice or your home, the symbolism will resonate in ways that a non-animal deck won't. It also works as a collector piece for cat lovers who practice: the art is detailed, the pagan symbolism is layered rather than superficial, and the mini format is something you'll actually carry rather than shelve. See more in my tarot and divination collection for pairing options.

Frequently Asked Questions