Dark Sidhe created @ Arkhamhaus Images

either to fat nor to thin, with beautiful hands,
perfect shoulders, skin softer than silk,
engaging in manner, long and straight in body:
altogether wonderfully seductive and, besides that,
the warmest and most sensual woman in all Great Britain.
Merlin had taught her astronomy and many other things,
and she studied them so well she became an excellent scholar...

She expressed herself with gentleness and delightful sweetness,
and was more good-natured than anyone else in the world,
when she was calm.
But when her anger was roused against someone,
she was very difficult to appease...

Estoire de Merlin, (also called the Vulgate or Prose Merlin)

the Sisterhood \ Celtic Mythology \ Created eons ago

Artists Description and general comments.

Client : Gallery Display - Sold as Framed Prints (on canvas).
Medium : Pencil Sketch (on Cartridge) 56cm by 40cm :
Scanned, Colour added and then Enhanced in Adobe Photoshop 2005 a.d
Design Notes : Flügel des Wunsches : The Background text is adapted from the "Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis " "The Voyage Of Saint Brendan " The eumorphous Sidhe character was based on an old girlfriend (like over 20 years a ago --good grief). If you look closely you can see a cresent tattoo on her right breast.

Leanan Sidhe :

The Fairy Mistress or Fairie Sweetheart, Leanan Sidhe (lan-awn shee), is a Celtic muse possessing a dark unearthly beauty. Her names translates directly as My Inspiration (Leanan) Faery (Sidhe). She is sometimes called Lhiannan-Shee (lannan-shee). Legend says she resides under the Irish Sea off the eastern coast of Ireland and is known to roam the Isle of Man at night as she searches for a new lover.

Her lovers are frequently artists, and all who fall under her spell suffer a keen longing in her absence. In return for the depth of emotion she receives, she inspires genius in her loves. They have been likened to candles burning at both ends: incredibly bright, but lacking the endurance of that which burns normally they expire quickly. Such is often the price of her gift, though it usual results from a great heartbreak or sorrow when she leaves, rather than a malicious intent on the part of the Leanan Sidhe.

While the artist in question typically considers her attentions a gift, the self destructive nature of the artists once she has left seems to have inspired a belief that the Leanan Sidhe is evil and dangerous. Some have even likened her to a vampire, Attached to one man as she ruins his body and soul.

Radiantly beautiful to her lover, she is invisible to all other mortals. So beautiful, in fact, that all other mortals become lifeless and dull when compared to the Leanan Sidhe.

When the rose is faded,
Memory may still dwell on Her beauty shadowed,
And the sweet smell gone.
That vanishing loveliness,
That burdening breath,
No bond of life hath then,
Nor grief of death.
Tis the immortal thought Whose passion still
Makes the changing The unchangeable.
Oh, thus thy beauty,
Loveliest on earth to me,
Dark with no sorrow,
shines And burns, with thee.

-Walter de la Mare-

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"If we analyse the principles of thought on which magic is based, they will probably be found to resolve themselves into two: first, that like produces like, or that an effect resembles its cause; and second, that things which once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the phyical contact has been severed."
--Sir James Frazer
The Golden Bough

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