How many Lenormand cards are usually drawn?

Lines of three, five and nine are common. There is also a large spread laying out all thirty-six. This service uses a line of three.

Do I really not look at orientation?

Not in the traditional reading. Some modern decks do add the maker's own interpretation of reversals. Deciding in advance which way you read is the reliable course.

Should I start with tarot or Lenormand?

There is less to learn in Lenormand. Since it reads by combination, though, it does not suit practising one card at a time. If you want to read a single card deeply, start with tarot.

The thirty-six Lenormand cards — a deck with no reversals

2026.09.11 updated · 5 min read

ReikaFieryAnswering questions from Mio

MioReika, I had not heard of Lenormand cards before. Are they different from tarot?

ReikaQuite different, though both are cards. The biggest thing is that Lenormand has no upright or reversed at all.

Lenormand is a deck of thirty-six cards. The form that spread across Europe in the nineteenth century is still in use, and the cast is entirely everyday: a rider, a clover, a ship, a house.

Where the tarot's major arcana deal in abstractions — the Fool, the High Priestess — Lenormand sets out objects and creatures. That difference runs straight into how they are read.

No reversals, but combinations instead

Tarot distinguishes a card that comes out upside down and reads it differently. Lenormand makes no such distinction. Which way up a card falls has nothing to do with its meaning.

So where does the meaning change? With whatever falls next to it. In Lenormand each card modifies its neighbour rather as an adjective does. Deciding the meaning of one card alone is not something this system does.

	Tarot	Lenormand
Number of cards	Twenty-two major, seventy-eight in all	Thirty-six
Upright and reversed	Yes	No
What changes the meaning	Orientation, and the position it falls in	The combination with neighbouring cards
Subjects of the images	Concepts and allegory	Objects, creatures, places
A single card	Works	No combination to make; unsuited

The Ship is a card of heading far off. With the Anchor beside it, it becomes settling in somewhere distant; with the Clouds beside it, going on without seeing where. The same card, moved by what it sits with.

Anyone used to tarot tends to look for reversals here too. You need not look at orientation. Look at what fell next to it.

The cast of thirty-six

The thirty-six are numbered one to thirty-six, in a traditional order that is the same in every deck. This service uses those numbers and names as they stand.

Numbers	Cards	In a phrase
1–6	Rider, Clover, Ship, House, Tree, Clouds	News, small luck, travel, foundation, growth, doubt
7–12	Snake, Coffin, Bouquet, Scythe, Whip, Birds	Detour, an ending, goodwill, decision, friction, talk
13–18	Child, Fox, Bear, Stars, Stork, Dog	A beginning, care, backing, a bearing, change, trust
19–24	Tower, Garden, Mountain, Crossroads, Mice, Heart	Solitude, company, obstacle, choice, wear, affection
25–30	Ring, Book, Letter, Man, Woman, Lily	Commitment, secrets, documents, a person, a person, maturity
31–36	Sun, Moon, Key, Fish, Anchor, Cross	Success, regard, resolution, money, stability, burden

Twenty-eight, the Man, and twenty-nine, the Woman, stand for the querent or someone closely involved. Where the other thirty-four indicate matters, these two alone indicate people.

Why everything is so ordinary

Look across the thirty-six and it is all ships, houses, dogs and letters — things from daily life. No mythological figures, no allegorical statues. That is not accident; it follows from how they are read.

Cards depicting abstractions leave a wide range of interpretation. That can run deep or shallow depending on the reader, and the answer blurs easily. Cards depicting objects do the opposite: what they point at is definite.

The Letter means an exchange in writing; the Key means resolution. The correspondence is concrete. Each card carries less information for it, and the combinations are what make that up.

It is less a method for reading deeply than one for setting the facts out quickly. It suits wanting a situation sorted.

How this service uses it

This service draws three of the thirty-six. It does not draw one, because the system reads by combination. With one card there is no neighbour and the reading does not settle.

The artwork is drawn for this service rather than copied from any published deck. The structure of thirty-six and the card names come from a nineteenth-century system and are free to use; the images and text of modern publications are not.

ReikaDo not carry what you learned in tarot straight over. Treat it as another language. Once used to it, plenty of people find the answers come out more plainly here.

Note: the person asking questions in this article is fictional. This is not a record of a real consultation.

Common questions

How many Lenormand cards are usually drawn?: Lines of three, five and nine are common. There is also a large spread laying out all thirty-six. This service uses a line of three.
Do I really not look at orientation?: Not in the traditional reading. Some modern decks do add the maker's own interpretation of reversals. Deciding in advance which way you read is the reliable course.
Should I start with tarot or Lenormand?: There is less to learn in Lenormand. Since it reads by combination, though, it does not suit practising one card at a time. If you want to read a single card deeply, start with tarot.