Deer in mythology

A gilded wooden figurine of a deer from the Pazyryk burials, 5th century BC

Deer have significant roles in the mythology of various peoples located all over the world.

Celtic

Antlered figure from the Gundestrup Cauldron, interior plate A

The Insular Celts have stories involving supernatural deer, deer who are associated with a spiritual figure, and spirits or deities who may take the form of deer.

In some Scottish and Irish tales deer are seen as "fairy cattle" and are herded and milked by a tutelary, benevolent, otherworldly woman (such as a bean sìdhe or in other cases the goddess Flidais), who can shapeshift into the form of a red or white deer.^[1] In the West Highlands, this woman of the otherworld selects the individual deer who will be slain in the next day's hunt.^[2]

In Ireland, The Cailleach Bhéara ("The Old Woman of Beare"), who lives on an island off the coast of County Cork, takes the form of a deer to avoid capture, and herds her deer down by the shore. The Beare peninsula is also associated with the islands in the western sea that are the lands of the dead.^[3] Other Celtic mythological figures such as Oisin and Sadbh also have connections to deer.

Cernunnos is a mythological figure in Continental Celtic mythology, and possibly one of the figures depicted on the Gundestrup cauldron. He has deer or stag antlers on the top of his head. His role in the religion and mythology is unclear, as there are no particular stories about him.

European Folklore

Detail of Saint Giles and the Hind, c. 1500, by the Master of Saint Gilles

Saint Giles, a Catholic saint especially revered in the south of France, is reported to have lived for many years as a hermit in the forest near Nîmes, where in the greatest solitude he spent many years, his sole companion being a deer, or hind, who in some stories sustained him on her milk. In art, he is often depicted together with that hind.

Deer figure in the founding legend of Le Puy-en-Velay, where a Christian church replaced a megalithic dolmen said to have healing powers. A local tradition had rededicated the curative virtue of the sacred site to Mary, who cured ailments by contact with the standing stone. When the founding bishop Vosy climbed the hill, he found that it was snow-covered in July; in the snowfall, the tracks of a deer around the dolmen outlined the foundations of the future church.

St Hubertus / St Eustace in a 13th-century English manuscript (Biblioteca Marciana)

Saint Hubertus (or "Hubert") is a Christian saint, the patron saint of hunters, mathematicians, opticians and metalworkers, and used to be invoked to cure rabies. The legend of St Hubertus concerned an apparition of a stag with the crucifix between its horns, effecting the worldly and aristocratic Hubert's conversion to a saintly life.

In the story of Saint Hubertus, on Good Friday morning, when the faithful were crowding the churches, Hubertus sallied forth to the chase. As he was pursuing a magnificent stag the animal turned and, as the pious legend narrates, he was astounded at perceiving a crucifix standing between its antlers, which occasioned the change of heart that led him to a saintly life. The story of the hart appears first in one of the later legendary hagiographies (Bibliotheca hagiographica Latina, nos. 3994–4002) and has been appropriated from the earlier legend of Saint Eustace (Placidus).

Later in the 6th century, the Bishop Saint Gregory of Tours wrote his chronicles about the Merovingian rulers. Historia Francorum contains the legend of King Clovis I, who prayed to Christ in one of his campaigns so he could find a place to cross the river Vienne. Considered as a divine sign, a huge deer appeared and showed where the army could pass.

In the 14th century, probably keeping some relation with Saint Eustace's legend, the deer again appears in Christian legend. The Chronicon Pictum contains a story where the later King Saint Ladislaus I of Hungary and his brother the King Géza I of Hungary were hunting in a forest, and a deer with numerous candles on his antlers appeared to them. Saint Ladislaus told his brother that it wasn't a deer but an angel of God, and his antlers were wings; the candles were shining feathers. He also stated his intent to build a cathedral in honor of the Holy Virgin in the place where the deer appeared.^[4]

Egypt

Satet, goddess of the hunt, was shown with the horns of a deer, and sometimes a deer's face.

Islam

Ottoman Empire

Turkic peoples that converted to Islam brought with them from the Eurasian Steppe their beliefs and cults involving horns, deer, antlers, hides, etc. (Not entirely without precedent: The pre-Islamic Kaaba itself had ram’s horns mounted on its walls) . In the Ottoman Empire, and more specifically in western Asia Minor and Thrace the deer cult seems to have been widespread and much alive, no doubt as a result of the meeting and mixing of Turkic with local traditions. A famous case is the 13th century holy man Geyiklü Baba, ‘Father Deer’, who lived with his deer in the mountain forests of Bursa and gave hind’s milk to a colleague (compare with Saint Giles) . Material in the Ottoman sources is not scarce but it is rather dispersed and very brief, denying us a clear picture of the rites involved.^[5]

Germanic

An Anglo-Saxon royal scepter found at the Sutton Hoo burial site in England features a depiction of an upright, antlered stag. In the Old English language poem Beowulf, much of the first portion of the story focuses on events surrounding a great mead hall called Heorot, meaning "Hall of the Hart".

In the Poetic Edda poem Grímnismál the four stags of Yggdrasil are described as feeding on the world tree, Yggdrasil, and the poem further relates that the stag Eikþyrnir lives on top of Valhalla. In the Prose Edda book Gylfaginning, the god Freyr is having once killed Beli with an antler. In Þiðrekssaga, Sigurd is presented as having been nursed by a doe.

Andy Orchard proposes a connection between the hart Eikþyrnir atop Valhalla, the hart imagery associated with Heorot, and the Sutton Hoo scepter.^[6] Sam Newton identifies both the Sutton Hoo whetstone and the hall Heorot as early English symbols of kingship.^[7] Rudolf Simek says that "it is not completely clear what role the stag played in Germanic religion" and theorizes that "the stag cult probably stood in some sort of connexion to Odin's endowment of the dignity of kings."^[8]

Greek

Diana of Versailles

Heracles, Telephus and the doe (Louvre Museum)

In Greek mythology, the deer is particularly associated with Artemis in her role as virginal huntress. Actaeon, after witnessing the nude figure of Artemis bathing in a pool, was transformed by Artemis into a stag that his own hounds tore to pieces. Callimachus, in his archly knowledgeable "Hymn III to Artemis", mentions the deer that drew the chariot of Artemis:

in golden armor and belt, you yoked a golden chariot, bridled deer in gold.

One of the Labors of Heracles was to capture the Cerynian Hind sacred to Artemis and deliver it briefly to his patron, then rededicate it to Artemis. As a hind bearing antlers was unknown in Greece, the story suggests a reindeer, which, unlike other deer, can be harnessed and whose females bear antlers. The myth relates to Hyperborea, a northern land that would be a natural habitat for reindeer. Heracles' son Telephus was exposed as an infant on the slopes of Tegea but nurtured by a doe.

Hinduism

Seeta with golden deer

In Hindu mythology, the Aitareya Upanishad tells us that the goddess Saraswati takes the form of a red deer called Rohit. Saraswati is the goddess of learning, so learned men use deer skin as clothing and mats to sit upon. A golden deer plays an important role in the epic Ramayana. While in exile in the forest, Rama's wife Sita sees a golden deer and asks Rama and Lakshmana to get it for her. The deer is actually a rakshasa called Maricha in disguise. Maricha takes this form to lure Rama and Lakshmana away from Sita so his nephew Ravana can kidnap her.

Hittite

The stag was revered alongside the bull at Alaca Höyük and continued in the Hittite mythology as the protective deity whose name is recorded as ^dKAL. Other Hittite gods were often depicted standing on the backs of stags.

Hungarian

In Hungarian mythology, Hunor and Magor, the founders of the Magyar peoples, chased a white stag in a hunt. The stag lead them into unknown land that they named Scythia. Hunor and Magor populated Scythia with their descendants the Huns and the Magyars. To this day, an important emblem in Hungary is a many-antlered stag with its head turned back over its shoulder.^[9]

Judaism

The Tribe Naftali bore a Stag on its tribal banner, and was poetically described as a Hind in the Blessing of Jacob.

In Jewish mythology - as discussed in the Talmud (חולין נט ע"ב) - exists a giant kind of stag by the name "Keresh". He is said to live in a mythical forest called "Bei Ilai".

Occultism

The spirit Furfur in The Goetia is depicted as a hart or winged hart.

Scythian

The Scythians had some reverence for the stag, which is one of the most common motifs in Scythian art. Possibly the swift animal was believed to speed the spirits of the dead on their way, which perhaps explains the curious antlered headdresses found on horses buried at Pazyryk (illustration at the top of this article).

Slavic and Uralic

In Slavic fairytales, Golden-horned deer is a large deer with golden antlers.

Golden or silver deer/elk was a popular folk character at the Urals in the 18th century.^[10] There were tales about the mythical creature called Silver Deer, also known as the elk Golden Horns and the goat Silver Hoof.^[11]

Huichol

For the Huichol people of Mexico,^[12] the "magical deer" represents both the power of maize to sustain the body and of the peyote cactus to feed and enlighten the spirit. Animals such as the eagle, jaguar, serpent and deer are of great importance to the Mexican indigenous cultures. For each group, however, one of these animals is of special significance and confers some of its qualities to the tribe.

For the Huichol it is the deer that holds this intimate role. The character of the Huichol tends to be light, flexible and humorous. They have avoided open warfare, neither fighting against the Spanish nor Mexican governments, but holding to their own traditions. The Huichol hunt and sacrifice deer in their ceremonies. They make offerings to the Deer of the Maize to care for their crops, and to the Deer of the Peyote to bring them spiritual guidance and artistic inspiration.

Sacred deer in Nara Park , a garden of the Kasuga shrine, Japan

Shinto

Deer are considered messengers to the gods in Shinto, especially Kasuga Shrine in Nara Prefecture where a white deer had arrived from Kashima Shrine as its divine messenger. It has become a symbol of the city of Nara. Deer in Itsukushima Shrine, located in Miyajima, Hiroshima, are also sacred as divine messengers. In various parts of Northeast Japan, a deer dance called "Shishi-odori" has been traditionally performed as an annual shinto ritual.^[13]

Manufactured mythology

Quintus Sertorius, while a general in Lusitania, had a tame white stag which he had raised nearly from birth. Playing on the superstitions of the local tribes, he told them that it had been given to him by the goddess Diana; by attributing all his intelligence reports to the animal, he convinced the locals that it had the gift of prophecy. (See Plutarch's life of Sertorius and Pliny the Elder's chapter on stags [N.H., VIII.50])

The naming of Sir Francis Drake's ship the "Golden Hind" is sometimes given a mythological origin. However, Drake actually renamed his flagship in mid-voyage in 1577 to flatter his patron Sir Christopher Hatton, whose armorial bearings included the crest "a hind Or." In heraldry, a "hind" is a doe.

Notes

References

• Orchard, Andy (1997). Dictionary of Norse Myth and Legend. Cassell. ISBN 0-304-34520-2
• Simek, Rudolf (2007) translated by Angela Hall. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. D.S. Brewer ISBN 0-85991-513-1