Celtic Butterfly Tattoos

From LoveToKnow Tattoos

Celtic butterfly tattoos combine the beauty of the undisputed queen of the insect world with ancient beliefs that still echo today. Learn more about what the Celts thought of these creatures and why butterfly tattoos are so incredibly popular today.

Assorted butterfly designs

Celtic Beliefs About Butterflies

To understand why so many people choose Celtic butterflies for their personal tattoos, we first need to understand what butterflies meant to the ancient Celts themselves.

The Celtic people lived closely entwined with the natural world and ascribed meanings to everything from stones to birds to trees. To the Celts, the butterfly was a strong symbol of rebirth and/or transformation.

Similar to their beliefs about other winged creatures, the Celts thought butterflies had souls. They believed these butterfly souls would fly around in search of a new mother, and when one found the right woman, it would conceal itself in her food or drink and be swallowed, thus impregnating the woman so the butterfly could be reborn as a human.

The Celts also held that to see a butterfly flitting about at night was a bad omen, one that foretold of impending death. Night was the natural domain of the butterfly's cousin, the moth.

The Legend of Etain

The legend of Etain has no doubt inspired more than a few butterfly tattoos. This story is about love, treachery and transformation.

Etain was a fairy maiden whose beauty was so great that the Faery King Midir fell in love with her at first sight. Unfortunately, he was already married, and the Queen became extremely jealous over his attraction. Using her fairy magic, she turned Etain into a butterfly, and conjured a great storm to blow her far away from Midir.

For seven years, Etain existed as a butterfly, flitting from place to place without a home of her own. One day she was spotted by another fairy king who recognized her for the fairy maiden she had once been. Although he could not break the magic spell that held her, he gave her a home within his own kingdom.

Eventually, tales of the beautiful butterfly reached the ears of the jealous Queen, who quickly sparked another storm to blow Etain away once more, but this time Etain was far more fortunate. She was blown clear away to a banquet where she landed in a glass of wine and was drunk by a mortal queen.

Nine months later, the mortal queen gave birth to a daughter. This princess grew up to marry the High King of Ireland, and was happy by all accounts. Then one day King Midir spotted her again, and immediately recognized his long lost love. He began to devise a plan to win her back for himself.

Midir challenged the High King to three games of chess, and the prize for the winner was a kiss from Etain. Midir won the match, and when he kissed Etain, she remembered who he was. Midir, using his magic, disguised the two of them as swans and flew away with Etain. Although the mortal King waged war against the fairies and searched for Etain, he never saw her again.

Celtic Butterfly Tattoos

Butterflies can be worked into any tattoo style you favor, but Celtic butterfly tattoos are some of the most distinctive of all. Butterflies are usually favored by women, but men enjoy the design too, and usually work it in with other elements in the tattoo.

Knot Work

The Celts are famous for their never-ending knot work designs. The very nature of these knots symbolizes the continuous cycle of life. Some Celtic tattoos are created by adapting the knots into the shape of a butterfly.

The design can be styled many ways:

The simplest Celtic butterflies are created with line drawings of knots that suggest the general shape of a butterfly.
More detailed creations include heavier outlines of the insect, filled in with knot work in place of the typical wing design.
The most elaborate knot work butterflies are filled in with a kaleidoscope of colors, and often embellished with flowers, vines and other symbols from nature.

Shamrocks

Shamrocks are classic features of Celtic imagery, and are often, but not always, created as tattoos using the knot work pattern. In a fresh twist, the four leaves of the lucky clover can be spread into the four wings of the butterfly.

Wings

Sometimes just the butterfly's elegant wings are used in a tattoo. They can be placed on the back, just like popular angel wing tattoos. They usually represent freedom when worn in this way.

In other designs, butterfly wings are substituted for fairy wings, resulting in beautiful butterfly fairies.

Christian Design

The Celts eventually adopted Christianity, but rather than set aside all of their old traditions and beliefs, they began incorporating them into symbols of the new religion. The shamrock became the symbol of the Trinity, and butterflies became symbols of the Resurrection.

Celtic tats of this vein sometimes use the imagery of the butterfly emerging from its chrysalis as a metaphor for Christ emerging from the tomb, and the Christian belief in life after death.