autumn sketch

sketching...

Seillean-dé...

Autumnal inspiration 🍁✨🎨
and my Celtic sketchbook

"In Celtic folklore, the butterfly often represents a person's soul. Its light and airy wings allow the soul to cross into the Otherworld. "
The Celts believed in fly-souls and butterfly-souls which, like bird-souls, flew about seeking a new mother. We can also find Butterflies and Moths in Irish folklore and mythology: In Irish myth, Etain took the form of a butterfly for seven years :
" Midir's first wife Fuamnach, became jealous of Etain's beauty and grace, turned Etain into a butterfly, and drove her away from the magic palace with gusty wind. The wind blew the butterfly to many parts of Ireland, until she arrived in Ulster. Here, the butterfly fell in the cup of Etar's wife. Etar's wife drank her cup and unknowingly swallowed the butterfly, where she later became pregnant with Etain. When Etain was born, she became mortal, without any memory of her former life as a Danann."

Butterflies are also connected with both Underworld and Otherworld and it is believed that they may act as messengers of the gods and the Hidden Ones.
In Celtic folklore we can also find otherworldly women who change into white butterflies on the night of Full Moon, luring mortal wanderers who lost their way to their destruction.