The Start of a Facade

Above: The Lihim Sidhe.  Below: How it came to be.

I am often asked what Lihim Sidhe means.  It's the name I use for myself online.  Truth is it's a word I accidentally made up.  After discovering it doesn't exist to anyone but me and those that have seen it I decided to stick with it.  This tale is all about how it all started.

I've been into drawing almost my whole life.  I had a brief stint with doodling Spudz Mckenzie when I was in second grade.  Then in middle school I discovered comics and it took a hold of me.  For years that's all I would draw too.  Comic book related stuff.  Super Heroes.  Crazy powers.  Mediocre attempts at NYC city lines.  You know... pretty typical stuff of my demographic.

When I was about 19 years old I found out all about how much my heart could suffer of loving the girl that is just not for me.  Looking back I can't blame her; she was a good manipulator.  Regardless it sucked for my naive and gullible ass and I got the ringer.  It's then that the comic book art I had been drawing up until that time just didn't seem to cut it.

My college professor at this time was a lovely and macabre woman named Dana.  If I had to pick THE teacher crush of all time it would be her.  To my current despondent self she was like a beacon of dark beauty.  A gaunt woman who would be perfectly at home in a huge labyrinthine library full of dust covered literature books of black humor and exquisite detail.

Particularly she exposed me to the author William Butler Yeats and as a class we talked about dark muses enchanting artists and writers to great heights and caustic lows.  Immediately that concept arrested my attention and it seemed that just like that I had finally found a way to channel my art past the comic book phase.  

When Dana saw what I was drawing I thought she said, "Those look like Lihim Sidhe.",(which I heard as Luh - hum Sid).  I took that as confirmation I was on the right track and ran with it.  When it came time to start getting more active online a few years later I knew I wanted to pick A name to use everywhere.  I didn't want to be ChrisJ58392 on one site and RocketSlippers19T on another site.  One.  Unified.  Name.

It's then that I remembered Luh Hum Sid from Dana's class and off I went with it.  When I contacted her years later and she saw I was using that name she asked what it was from.  I told her, "From your class; you're the one that told me about the Luh Hum Sid remember?"

"No Christopher.  Those are Leanan Sidhe.  You must have misheard me."

It's then I realized that Lihim Sidhe was entirely my own creation and I could have it mean whatever I want.  However, since I was inspired by W.B. Yeats's writings I simply used the inspiration as a base and let my twisted imagination modify it to the dark current that pulses through my soul.

*Puts on speaking voice*.  And without further ado here is the OFFICIAL definition of Lihim Sidhe.  Now pronounced Lie Heim She (I saw I could phonetically work the word 'Lie' into the name and as you'll see it's hard to resist)

The Lihim Sidhe are spirits who preoccupy themselves with playing the part of muses to those who have creative minds.  At first the Lihim Sidhe appears as a symbiotic personage to their hosts; inspiring them to great heights.  This is all a ruse however.  As the hosts trust the Lihim Sidhe they invariably let their defenses down allowing a Lihim Sidhe to infect them without restriction.  Once a full infection is established the Lihim Sidhe reveals its true nature not as a symbiote but as a parasite. Lihim Sidhe sustain themselves on the misery their host produces as they drag their spirit into a personal Hell.  

Symptoms of infection can include black veins and vomiting forth a black, sludgy, tar like, ichor that has an unusual sheen to it.  It is slightly acidic and has a sour, somewhat rotten smell to it.

If left unchecked a Lihim Sidhe will at the minimum suffer upon their host visions of lost dreams and joys.  Their cries and suffering from a wasted and forgotten life keeping the Lihim Sidhe absolutely awash and ecstatic in the misery they so covet.  At the worst the hosts can become so infected they simply die of a broken spirit.

However, there are times where a Lihim Sidhe infection is so severe and runs so deep that when the host dies, its destroyed remains transform into a newly born Lihim Sidhe.  As a Lihim Sidhe they will only seek to do what has been done to them and maddeningly pursue to do so every chance they get.

So obviously this is not something good to mention on a first date.  Or 50th.  Just something that the nosy find out by coming here and if not I default to saying, "It's just some kind of spirit from Celtic mythology."  Which it is.  I'm sure you've heard of a banshee right?  The original spelling of the 'shee' part of 'banshee' is actually 'sidhe'.  That's why the 'sidhe' part of 'lihim sidhe' is pronounced in the same way.

Whew!  Wall of text COMPLETE.  I'll leave you with my first, original, image of the lihim sidhe I drew long ago.  Enjoy!

This is my only image of the lihim sidhe.  Ironically I've never drawn them again.  What's up with that?