Lenormand cards: the 36 cards and their meanings
Lenormand cards are a deck of 36 images read in pairs: each card takes its meaning from the card beside it.
- 36 cards
- combinations
- Grand Tableau
The 36 cards
- Ridernews, movement
- Cloversmall luck, lightness
- Shiptravel, distance
- Househome, stability
- Treeroots, slow growth
- Cloudsdoubt, confusion
- Snakedetour, strategy
- Coffinclosure, end of a cycle
- Bouquetgift, gratitude
- Scythedecision, clean cut
- Whiplively discussion, repetition
- Birdsconversations, buzz
- Childfresh start, simplicity
- Foxcaution, cunning
- Bearstrength, protection
- Starshope, inspiration
- Storkchange, improvement
- Dogloyalty, friendship
- Towerinstitutions, distance
- Gardensocial life, network
- Mountainobstacle, challenge
- Crossroadschoice, options
- Micewear, worry
- Heartaffection, sincerity
- Ringcommitment, promise
- Bookknowledge, secret
- Letterwritten message, document
- Manfigure, person represented
- Womanfigure, person represented
- Lilyserenity, maturity
- Sunenergy, clarity
- Moonemotions, intuition
- Keysolution, opening
- Fishexchanges, abundance
- Anchorstability, perseverance
- Crosstrial, duty
Draw three or five cards
A line of cards read two by two, starting with the center card.
Free, no account · nothing is sent · no predictions
The Grand Tableau
All 36 cards laid out, your figure, its house, and the themes around it.
Free, no account · nothing is sent · no predictions
Reading two cards together
A single card says little. Placed beside another, it forms a short sentence: the first card names the subject, the second says how it shows up. The Rider followed by the Letter speaks of a message in circulation; the Letter followed by the Rider, of a written piece that sets off.
The deck is read upright, with no reversed cards: it is the neighboring cards that shade a card’s meaning, not its orientation.
The Grand Tableau and its houses
The Grand Tableau lays out all 36 cards at once, in four rows of nine. Each position also carries the theme of a card, its house: the first position is the Rider’s house, the twenty-fourth the Heart’s.
You start by finding the figure that represents you, then read the house it falls in, the cards touching it, and where the major themes sit around it.
Where the deck comes from
The deck comes from a German parlor game, the Game of Hope (Das Spiel der Hoffnung), published in Nuremberg around 1799 from drawings by Johann Kaspar Hechtel: 36 illustrated cards, each with a playing card in a small medallion, on which players moved forward by rolling dice.
The name of Marie Anne Lenormand, a Parisian fortune-teller who died in 1843, was attached to it only after her death. The divinatory meanings of the cards grew out of 19th-century use and were passed down with no single author.
Lenormand describes a situation through images: it fixes no date and no outcome, and the decision stays with you.
Frequently asked questions about Lenormand cards
How many cards are in a Lenormand deck?
Thirty-six, numbered from 1, the Rider, to 36, the Cross. Each carries a simple image and, in a medallion, a playing card, a legacy of the original parlor game.
How do you read a two-card combination?
Read from left to right: the first card gives the subject, the second qualifies it, like a noun followed by an adjective. Changing the order therefore changes the nuance of the pair.
Can you draw Lenormand cards reversed?
That is not the custom. Lenormand cards are read upright: it is the neighboring cards that soften or sharpen an image, and the spread on this site follows that practice.
What is the difference between Lenormand and tarot?
Tarot brings together 78 cards rich in symbols, each readable on its own. Lenormand lines up 36 everyday images, more direct, which gain their meaning by combining.