Sacred Art: The Morrigan

A most powerful goddess

This is the second in an occasional series about my sacred art. You can find all the posts in this series here.

[CW: Mentions of abuse]

I have often felt called to paint pictures of the deities I have relationships with. What those paintings end up looking like depends on the deity and the time in my life when I’m creating the art.

I’ve had a relationship with the Morrigan since I was a small child, though I didn’t know who she was back then. Like many twentieth-century middle class white Americans, I had no experience with any kind of pagan or polytheist concepts. I didn’t even encounter mythology of any sort until I was in middle school, and then it was just the basics of Greek and Roman myths, carefully abridged for WASPish sensibilities. Nothing wider-ranging than that. What I read whetted my appetite for more, of course. But it wasn’t until the internet became an accessible source of information and communication, when I was in my late 20s to early 30s, that I was able to explore and discover more world mythology with any ease.

As a child, I was one of those weird kids who had a large collection of “imaginary friends,” some of whom later turned out to be deities. Are you one of those as well? The more people I meet, the more I discover how common this childhood experience was for many of us.

As an adult, I learned that some of my “imaginary friends” were deities. They showed up for me when I called out into the ether for help during the most difficult years of my childhood; both of my parents were abusive, especially when I was very young. Some of these deities answered my pleas because I had relationships with them in past lives. And some were there because of a connection with my ancestors. The Morrigan was the second sort.

I remember sitting on the swing set in our back yard and talking with her. She tried to get me to say her name, but I couldn’t pronounce it and didn’t really understand what she was saying. Years later, I realized she was telling me her name in Irish: An Mór-ríoghan. She always showed up wearing red, so eventually I took to calling her Red Mary, which she found amusing.

She was also amused by the fact that I wasn’t afraid of her — which was entirely due to the fact that I had no idea who she was. When I realized, as an adult, who I had been dealing with all those years, to say I was taken aback is a gross understatement. It took me a long time to wrap my head around the whole situation and be able to interact with her again without trembling. She still awes me, though, even if I don’t literally quake in my boots when she shows up.

Eventually I felt compelled to do a painting of her, but it took me a while to figure out how I wanted to compose the image. So many pictures of her show her in a war chariot, but that didn’t feel right. To me personally, her most important characteristic is that of sovereignty, and that quality is connected with the land. So I ended up having her stand barefoot on the land, connected with it directly, physically.

Although I believe the Morrigan is far older than the Iron Age, that’s the era when she resonates strongly for many people, me included. So I researched Iron Age Celtic women’s clothing. I ended up picturing her with a variation of the chiton-type woolen dress that many Celtic women wore during that era, though I added knotwork decoration that isn’t historically accurate, simply because it felt right — artistic license and all that.

She’s tall and thin, almost skeletal, grey-haired, with hands like claws… and she’s spattered in blood. She’s not pretty or young or sexy. She’s not smiling. This is no quiet, gentle goddess, no man-pleaser. She teaches us (all of us, of all genders) to put our own claws out and use them when appropriate, to not be afraid to draw blood (figuratively or literally) if that’s what’s truly necessary, to not feel remorse afterward if we did what we had to in order to safeguard ourselves and those under our protection. To stand firm in our own sovereignty and protect it with all our force of will.

She is a big part of how I survived that abusive childhood, how I managed to hold onto a few shreds of sanity and self-worth. I am immensely grateful for her presence in my life, both then and now.

And so I painted a picture of her to share with the world.

Red Mary is with us. An Mór-ríoghan is with us.

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My Substack is free, but if you’d like to support my work (please and thank you!), you can find my books here and my art, including The Morrigan, here and here.

About Laura Perry

I'm an author, artist, and creator who works magic with words, paint, ink, music, textiles, and herbs. I'm also the founder and Temple Mom of Ariadne's Tribe, a worldwide inclusive Minoan spiritual tradition. My spiritual practice includes spirit work and herbalism through the lens of lifelong animism. I write Pagan / polytheist non-fiction and fiction across several different subjects and genres. I'm currently working on an illustrated book of modern Minoan myths and a Minoan entry in the Moon Books Pantheons series (release date 26 August 2025). I’m also an avid gardener and living history demonstrator.