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Craft Report: Leton Bebronas

Leton Bebronas is a fully fledged member of the Toutâ, completing their datlâ certification less than a month ago. Hailing from Belgium, they are well known for sharing a multitude of stunning pictures from their visits to nearby archaeological sites and museums.

Lesson 9 : Craft

I made a devotional drawing of Sucellos. It is a companion piece of my previous Nantosuelta drawing.

(The completed piece for this lesson. Due to the camera, and with the screen as a variable, the colors *could* be duller than it is in reality.)

Symbolism

  • Bones : death and underworld
  • Tree : life. An oak. 
  • The tree, as it is, is not realistic as it is in various states of it’s cycles. New leaves, Acorns, dead branches.
  • Mallet : iconography of Sucellos
  • Grape and wine : associated with Sucellos, and also fertility and products of the earth (as are the apples bellow, while not among Sucellos’s usual iconography)
  • Hands : There are death hands and life hands. The life hands give fruits and wine, the death hands are present to kill them. Both are presents for a cycle of life and death.
  • Squirrel: Use and eat the product of the tree
  • Wheat : agriculture.

Sucellos is a god of life and death. Of what grows on the earth, of the underworld and it’s fertility.

This is not a typical depiction, not traditional. It is not a humanoid (not really) depiction. I am not sure of how to describe what it is. More literal animist aspect probably? Symbolic is highly present. Aside from what is used from attested iconography, I make my own which means I need to focus on the deity, and follow my guts. I love that kind of work, because I believe that the gods can have many shapes.

Aside from the attested iconography I used, I had to make my own due to the nature of this depiction. Drawing aspects of a god in a more literal way. It is also a matter of not only relying on history books, but also on what i feel from it. Aside from this, I tried to balance the colors. Not too dull but not a literal rainbow.

Process: 

(Sketches, trying out some visuals and deciding of the elements)

(Scaling of the selected final visual)

(Coloring process)

Bonus piece:

Nantoseulta

It’s companion piece, that I made some times ago.

Symbolism:

  • The house scepter (common iconography)
  • Flowers, Wheat, Water (fertility, underworld, gifts of the underworld, life)
  • Roots (underworld)
  • Earthly roots with holes, insects (mysteries of the earth, home for many creatures)
  • Bones (death)
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An Pen Bissietio

 Selgowiros Caranticnos once told me, ‘we are a minority within a minority within a minority’. This is certain. Long ago, there were those who carried a culture that was first born on the foot of a salt mine, and then at the edge of a lake.

The culture contained gods, stories, crafts, song, combat styles, language, and within only a few years of horror, much of that was gone. But here we are today, and within the span of a generation we are slowly collecting those pieces shattered two millennia ago.

The Touta begun only within the past few solar cycles, and we’ve taken that time to organize ourselves, and be ready for an emergence. We will become the roar of Gaulish Polytheism, the voice in Celtic Paganism, a sound of Paganism, and a known religion of the world.

But why drive ourselves forward? Make ourselves known? The world isn’t a Dark Forest, and we believe we have something to offer. A welcoming polytheism community, that’s racist free, with ties to the ancient but also prepared for the future. We will learn about those gods, remake the stories, language, crafts, combat styles, and songs. We are Galatis.

Yours,
Cunobelinus Betullicnos
Toutâ Daltâ