At the time of sketching this print (a few years ago) I was reading about folklore and nose deep in the Silmarillion. Stories like Branwen and Rhiannon stood out to me. Both powerful, complex women from the Mabinogion.

And others such as Morgan le Fay from Arthurian legends, a sibling (sometimes) of King Arthur and a powerful sorceress.

In the oldest tales, Arthur was a Welsh hero with Morgan le Fay as a mysterious figure of magic and power. Early stories cast her as a fay or goddess, a protector bound to Arthur’s fate. But as the legends travelled across time and borders, so did she, her role shifting, her morality growing more tangled.

By the time the later French cycles emerged (with the addition of the garbled French “la Fée”), she had become an ambiguous force. Sometimes healer, sometimes villain.

This print followed a similar journey.

The Making

This one was heavily influenced by those tales as I was sketching at the time. I wanted to depict a strong female character. Proud but with an underlying sense of power.

However once the block was inked and the final image came out, she had become this darker, powerful force, much like the cycle of Morgan le Fay herself. The process of carving and printing had transformed the initial vision into something more complex, more ambiguous.

There’s something about the nature of linocut that allows for these transformations. What begins as one intention on paper can become something entirely different once the blade starts cutting into the block. The material itself has a say in the final outcome.

The Print

Like Morgan le Fay’s evolution through centuries of storytelling, this figure emerged from the process carrying more shadow than I had originally planned. The strength remained, but it had taken on a different quality—less straightforward heroism, more complex power.

Perhaps that’s truer to the nature of these ancient female figures anyway. Branwen, Rhiannon, Morgan le Fay. They were forces of nature, figures who operated beyond the usual moral boundaries, who held power that made others uncomfortable.

This print captures something of that complexity. A figure who might be protector or destroyer, healer or curse-bringer, depending on how the light falls.

The legends shift with each telling, and perhaps the prints should too.

Hwyl fawr/Goodbye,
Dan