Elizabeth Sulis Kim is an Edinburgh-based writer from the West Country. She is the author of The Book of Beasts: Reclaiming Animal Wisdom (Chatto & Windus) and The Art of Folklore (forthcoming in 2027 from Frances Lincoln). She is also the editor of Cunning Folk magazine and Spiritus Mundi, an anthology of occult writing (Liminal 11). Her writing has appeared in publications such as BBC Culture, Mslexia, Hellebore, Fiddler's Green, Litro, The Guardian, the LA Review of Books, Ambit, and TANK.
Read Elizabeth’s writing at elizabethsuliskim.com
23/09/2026, 19:40 - Finbarre:
Welcome to Tarot DMs with Finbarre.
Today’s guest is Elizabeth Sulis Kim, a writer and editor whose work deals with mythology, magic, animals, and those very human stories told around the world.
She’s the founding editor of Cunning Folk, an independent magazine devoted to magic and mythology, and her work has appeared everywhere from The Guardian to the BBC, The Independent, Dazed, and the LA Review of Books.
Her first book, The Book of Beasts: Reclaiming Animal Wisdom, was published by Chatto & Windus in August 2026. It travels across cultures and thousands of years of history, exploring twelve emblematic animals and asking the question: what might change if we stop thinking of animals as something separate from ourselves?
Her next book, The Art of Folklore, arrives in 2027, and she’s currently writing a novel.
So this feels like fertile territory for Tarot, with beasts and humans, instinct and intellect, magic, and the ancient world… all looking to the future.
Elizabeth Sulis Kim, welcome to Tarot DMs.
Let’s see what the cards want to ask you.
23/09/2026, 19:42 - Elizabeth Sulis Kim:
Thanks so much for having me, Finbarre. I’m excited. I kind of want to say nervous, but not because we’re having a chat, but because I don’t know what’s going to happen during our reading.
23/09/2026, 19:44 - Finbarre:
Well, that makes two of us because although the cards are good friends of mine, occasionally they can surprise. We’ll be using the Bad Witch Tarot deck by Michelle Lodge. These have a zesty and burlesque feel to them. And I’ll be laying those out very shortly, starting with the anchor card, the one that’s given to every single guest that I have. And we’ll see where we go from there.
But I need to ask about animals because I was just reading that you regarded family cats almost as sisters and used to rescue mice and voles and birds. Can I ask what animals are currently in your life at the moment?
23/09/2026, 19:46 - Elizabeth Sulis Kim:
This is such an interesting format because while you’re speaking, I’m Googling Bad Witch by Michelle Lodge.
And yeah, I’m looking at all the results on Google Images.
Tragically, at the moment, I don’t have any animals. I mean, I live with other humans. On my street in Edinburgh, we live on this quiet cul-de-sac. There are about six cats and I’ve kind of claimed them. But unfortunately, our landlord doesn’t want animals around… so we had a child instead!
Hopefully, she will not destroy the carpet as much as a cat would, which was, I think, his concern.
23/09/2026, 19:47 - Elizabeth Sulis Kim:
I know it’s shocking. I mean, I do have other animals in my life, but they don’t live with me.
I did grow up with lots of animals, though. I actually grew up in the West Country and we had chickens, doves, cats. I had a horse. I rescued some ducks. We lived very close to sheep and cows. We had lots of wildlife around us, hedgehogs, foxes, badgers.
23/09/2026, 19:49 - Finbarre:
The geek in me has to ask, when you have such a variety of creatures around you, do you have like a naming convention? Like, are you, I don’t know, calling all of the doves names from EastEnders? Are all the horses the cast of Coronation Street? How does it work?
23/09/2026, 19:50 - Elizabeth Sulis Kim:
That’s an interesting question that I’ve never really thought of before. I called my rabbits and cats quite embarrassing names when I was very small, things like Fairy Rose and Rosebud. And I definitely had two hamsters, one called Susan I and one called Susan II, who obviously followed after. The chickens definitely had names too, and so did the doves, but I think there were just too many to remember.
23/09/2026, 19:51 - Finbarre:
I can well imagine tiny you writing down all of the names of these newfound friends in something that appears to be the Domesday book.
Speaking of Domesday, your first card. It’s the Tower.
This is the one that everyone’s had this month.
The Tower card is one of collapse, calamity, a disaster that you just couldn’t have predicted, but it’s also reconstruction.
23/09/2026, 19:51 - Finbarre:
23/09/2026, 19:52 - Finbarre:
Counterintuitively in a funny old way it’s a good card to start with because things can only get better! What kind of vibes do you get from this?
23/09/2026, 19:54 - Elizabeth Sulis Kim:
So I’m not a huge reader of tarot myself, but I do know that the Tower is, for most people, scarier than death, which is often more symbolic or is understood as more symbolic. What do I get from the Tower? I mean, I get my associations with it rather than my kind of intuition, I suppose. You know, the sense of needing to jump ship from whatever’s going on there. Is it a fire or it’s actually the turrets falling over?
It’s interesting that a lot of people are getting this, though. I wonder if it’s not personal, but something collective that’s going on.
23/09/2026, 19:55 - Finbarre:
In these easy and halcyon days, it’s almost unthinkable that something so prominent could be there like the Tower.
Okay, I’m going to ask you a question based on the meaning of the card.
And what I would like to know is… as a writer, what was something that you believed was true that turned out not to be?
23/09/2026, 19:58 - Elizabeth Sulis Kim:
Are we talking research or writing process or publishing world? Something not even to do with writing at all. I just feel like this is such a big, broad question and I’m racking my brain trying to think.
23/09/2026, 20:00 - Finbarre:
I’m thinking, what’s ever caused the biggest shock, the biggest disbelief?
23/09/2026, 20:01 - Elizabeth Sulis Kim:
So it’s not that my writing process or research process was particularly smooth, but I don’t think anything really shocked me. I’m really trying to think, no, I don’t think so.
23/09/2026, 20:03 - Finbarre:
It shows you’re unflappable and made of stern stuff. If I was looking at, say for example, with the Book of Beasts, across the globe at different traditions and different ways of seeing the animal kingdom and how even pets could be seen through different eyes, I’m sure I’d find something in there that would surprise me. Is there anything there that, I don’t know, made you look twice at your work or your research?
23/09/2026, 20:06 - Elizabeth Sulis Kim:
When I went into writing this book and doing the research for it, I think I just approached it in a very open-minded, anything could happen, there could be any relationship with animals.
I mean, bear in mind, I had been kind of trawling through archives, looking at how people had related to animals in the past, where there were things like animal trials.
In one of them, a donkey was accused of a bestiality charge, and there was this whole community-wide campaign to exonerate the donkey.
The community said that the donkey was innocent, and basically a very dignified and worthy member of the community.
The judge found that the donkey was innocent, and it was the person who raped the donkey who was charged.
So, I mean, I think that knowing these types of stories exist, knowing that there have been cultures and there are cultures that, you know, view animals as capable of having moral agency, it did sort of set me on a course where I thought anything could happen.
And I think that in general with life, and I think that really helps with writing, because I do think you have to kind of go, you have to be open to strange things happening.
23/09/2026, 20:08 - Finbarre:
Before we move to the second card, I need to ask, was the donkey actually present in court?
23/09/2026, 20:09 - Finbarre: As that... is surreal!
23/09/2026, 20:10 - Elizabeth Sulis Kim:
In that particular example, I don’t know, but I think there was a requirement to be at court for animals.
I mean, it’s very hard sometimes to discern between popular legend and the trial records.
But there was another story of some rats failing to make the court date and then a lawyer had to advocate for them and explain why they couldn’t come.
23/09/2026, 20:11 - Finbarre:
Elizabeth, we’re on to your second card. This is your Wild card. This is one that could be any of the cards that I have from this deck, bar two. The first one that we started with and the last one that was given to you. But apart from that, anything goes. So while I’m shuffling these, say stop and we’ll see what you get.
23/09/2026, 20:12 - Elizabeth Sulis Kim: Stop!
23/09/2026, 20:13 - Finbarre:
23/09/2026, 20:13 - Finbarre:
It’s your chance to make a prediction here. What energies are you expecting?
23/09/2026, 20:14 - Elizabeth Sulis Kim:
It could well be cups. I often pick cups, but it probably won’t be now that I’ve said that.
23/09/2026, 20:15 - Finbarre:
You were right in that it won’t be because we have...
23/09/2026, 20:15 - Finbarre:
23/09/2026, 20:15 - Finbarre:
The Two of Swords, the card of impasse.
23/09/2026, 20:16 - Elizabeth Sulis Kim: ooh!
23/09/2026, 20:17 - Finbarre:
For this one, I’m going to have to quickly read out A.E. Waite’s original description, the chap who was one of the architects of the Rider-Waite-Smith cards.
And he said, “conformity and the equipoise which it suggests, courage, friendship, concord in a state of arms.
Another reading gives tenderness, affection, intimacy.
The suggestion of harmony and other favorable readings must be considered in a more qualified manner.
The swords generally are not symbolical of beneficent forces in human affairs.”
Well said, A.E. Waite.
So my question to you is that we divide animals up into categories.
We’ve got pets and livestock and wildlife and vermin.
What contradictions in how we view our furry four-legged friends… maybe they’ve got wings or gills. What contradictions are there that we try not to look at?
23/09/2026, 20:21 - Elizabeth Sulis Kim:
First, my initial immediate response when I saw the card was the conflict between this sort of overthinking mind and the mind involved in flow state, which probably speaks to where I am now, sort of wrestling between the two.
I’ll answer your question now.
23/09/2026, 20:27 - Elizabeth Sulis Kim:
Our categorizations of other animals are full of contradictions. They’re often quite self-serving.
So we might label one animal as an idol or God one day because it gives us something. Say we view it as, or we recognize it as integral to an ecosystem.
And then the next, we’re competing with that animal for food and we decide it’s a pest or it’s just a really cute animal and we decide that we’d like to have it stick around more.
Suddenly it’s an animal companion, it’s a pet.
I think a lot of people just have very clear categories in their minds. One animal bad, another animal good, this animal food, this animal isn’t.
But these kinds of stories quickly come apart when you show someone something that they’re not familiar with. Like if you suggest that rather than drink cow milk, you drink rat milk.
I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but there’s that sort of, there’s that Instagram account, Elwood Dogmeat. And it’s often used to sort of shock people out of their, of their thinking.
When people say that they’re shocked at something happening to a beloved animal, or rather when people don’t express grief at death of say a cow, people tend to tag this, this account.
And it’s, it’s a fake account. There isn’t really an Elwood Dogmeat.
But it’s very provocative and it challenges us to think past our human-made ideas of what animals are.
23/09/2026, 20:34 - Finbarre:
Elizabeth, I don’t know if you ever did this as you were growing up. There was a phase of all of my friends going around saying, if you’re an animal, what would you be? I’m curious, is there a particular creature that you identify with? I mean, for me, it has always been and will always be the octopus because they’re just so brilliantly strange. How about you?
23/09/2026, 20:35 - Elizabeth Sulis Kim:
Yes, I’m sure I was asked that as a child and I’m not sure what I answered. But I think now I would have to say a whale. And the reasons for the whale are in the book. But I did have lots of dreams in my early 20s about whales. Every so often I get them now, but not quite so persistent as they were then. Octopus is really fun. I’m guessing you watched My Octopus Teacher.
23/09/2026, 20:37 - Finbarre:
I have a confession. I haven’t seen that. I haven’t read Other Minds, The Octopus, The Sea, and Deep Origins of Consciousness by, I think it’s Peter Godfrey-Smith. And I’ve not read The Soul of an Octopus either. I’m such a bad octopus fan. Although I will watch an almost infinite number of YouTube videos where they sneak out of their tank and eat all the shrimp or spit water at lights.
23/09/2026, 20:37 - Finbarre: The scamps
23/09/2026, 20:39 - Elizabeth Sulis Kim:
I definitely saw one YouTube video where a guy went to a supermarket, rescued an octopus from a tank and taught it piano.
23/09/2026, 20:40 - Elizabeth Sulis Kim:
I’m in a freediving community here in Edinburgh and quite a few people I know dive offshore around the coast. And there are apparently lots of octopuses around.
For me, it’s a little bit cold here.
I’m mainly doing pool training and trying to freedive elsewhere. Maybe I’ll be tempted at some point because there are also seals everywhere.
23/09/2026, 20:41 - Finbarre:
There I was feeling guilty and thinking, I really need to read those books. And then you’ve just gone and distracted me again. I’ll need to watch this.
I’d love to hear what you could teach an octopus to play. I’m guessing it would be something like the guy who sounds like a French impressionist painter made music. Satie, that’s the chap.
Right. We’ve got to your third card. Sorry, I’m getting completely waylaid here.
Thinking about an octopus, possibly, you know, wearing a little dinner jacket, playing in a restaurant. Yeah, you probably wouldn’t want to run an octopus in a restaurant.
Third card time, it’s the gift card. And this was given to you by Honey Wyatt, who is the editor-in-chief and host of Sextras, which is a podcast about sex and relationships.
And you’ve got a card from her.
23/09/2026, 20:43 - Elizabeth Sulis Kim: Thank you Honey Wyatt - hope it’s a good one
23/09/2026, 20:43 - Finbarre:
23/09/2026, 20:43 - Elizabeth Sulis Kim: feels like the next beat of the story after the tower
23/09/2026, 20:44 - Finbarre:
Yeah, I’m not going to lie. I’m so glad we’re not finishing with something like the Ten of Swords.
The Knight of Wands is a card of adventure. It’s one of relocation. It’s a card of galloping and hurtling. And it’s a very exciting time. It’s one of a passionate pursuit.
23/09/2026, 20:45 - Elizabeth Sulis Kim: it definitely resonates!
23/09/2026, 20:47 - Finbarre:
In your research of the Book of Beasts, you’ll have travelled across different landscapes, you’ll have traversed distant lands. Imagine that putting a book like that together is an adventure.
At the end of it, did you discover what a beast is?
23/09/2026, 20:51 - Elizabeth Sulis Kim:
Yeah, I think there’s definitely some Knight of Wands energy that went into writing and researching the book. I think what’s quite interesting is that when I was a teenager, when I was a child, actually, a lot of the books that I read were those adventure novels where people go off looking for treasure or pirate novels, Treasure Island, Coral Island, Robinson Crusoe, that type of thing.
There’s both the excitement at adventure and the fear of what is awaiting them on this island. And it’s usually quite a colonial view of the world, that what lies beyond civilization is scary. But there’s also curiosity. I think that’s what a beast is. I think it’s a word for anything that we other, both within ourselves and within other animals.
It’s our human nature that we don’t want to think about or that we want to blame someone else for. And it’s also the things that we don’t understand that scare us.
23/09/2026, 20:55 - Finbarre:
An unexpected and beautiful way of describing the unknown.
Elizabeth, it’s your chance to repay the favour, to pass on a card.
Which one would you like to hand on today?
If you have a deck of cards to shuffle, if you could take a picture of one, or just think of one off the top of your head. I’ll make sure the next guest gets it.
23/09/2026, 20:58 - Elizabeth Sulis Kim:
Because you like octopuses :) this is from the Anima Mundi Tarot
23/09/2026, 21:00 - Finbarre:
I do very much, given how the hermit is often portrayed as being alone at night, a truth seeker following a lantern or a distant light, an octopus somewhere in the depths.
It does feel appropriate. Thank you.
And Elizabeth, thank you so much for being on Tarot DMs today.
23/09/2026, 21:03 - Elizabeth Sulis Kim:
I’m glad it resonates. And thanks so much, Finbarre, for having me on Tarot DMs.
23/09/2026, 21:04 - Finbarre:
It goes without saying thank you to you for either reading or listening to this.
It does feel appropriate that a conversation about The Book of Beasts ends with the tarot that normally involves lions and horses and birds and snakes.
And you get an entire menagerie across all of the decks that have been made.
The Book of Beasts: Reclaiming Animal Wisdom is out now. The Art of Folklore follows in March 2027.
You can also discover Elizabeth’s work through Cunning Folk, the magazine she founded exploring folklore, magic and the occult.
Elizabeth Sulis Kim, thank you for letting the tarot interview you.