Deer in Mythology & Folklore

Throughout time, people across the world told each other tales of how they came to be. Of heroes and monsters, romance and tragedy, death and rebirth. Mythology helped shape the ancient world explaining the unexplainable. This is Mythology Unleashed. Deer are some of the most widespread animals in nature. With 43 different subspecies spread across 5 continents and living in many different environments including forests, jungles, deserts, and tundra. Magnificent animals, they can run at great speeds, leap incredible heights and distances, have strong senses of smell and hearing, and endure natural hardships that can topple other species. Since the Stone Age, deer have been vital to the survival of countless cultures, having been historically hunted for their meat, hide, and antlers. As a result, deer have been featured in a grand number of myths, folktales, and fables, appearing as companions, spiritual guides, objects of quests and curses, messengers from immortal powers, and sometimes even as gods. It would seem as though wherever deer were common, they were always connected to gods, spirits, and other immortal powers in local tradition and folklore. In Celtic traditions, deer, namely stags or male deer, are symbolic of the forest, nature, and especially the Otherworld, the realm belonging to the Shades of the Dead, as well as the Fae, spirits, and gods. And they are also strongly tied to various Celtic figures, such as Kalyak, Fleish, and Ashene, the latter of whom's name means young deer, or fawn. To the ancient Greeks, deer were sacred to Artemis, the goddess of the hunt and the wilderness, often seen accompanying her in the forest, and even pulling her chariot. In one of the Jataka tales, a deer is one of the reincarnations of Buddha. In Shintoism, deer acted as the personal messengers of the Shinto gods, and to see one, namely one as white as snow, was an omen of great change. Numerous gods associated with nature, hunting, and fertility sport a pair of antlers, most notably the mysterious Gallic-Celtic figure known as Cernunnos, who is not only portrayed as bearing the antlers of a mighty stag, but many images also feature him surrounded by deer and other forest animals. In Norse mythology, a stag named Yggdnir lives atop Valhalla, while four stags named Dane, Dvalin, Duner, and Durothror browse on the leaves of the world tree Yggdrasil, effectively shortening the hours, the days, and the seasons, while the dew that drips from their antlers create the rivers and the streams. Hungarian legend portrays the stag as the carrier of the sun, and the hind as its mother, the heavenly firmament of the cosmos, which carries the stars, the sun, and moon in its horns. In northern Siberia, the heavenly reindeer, symbolized by the Big Dipper, steals the sun, and that is why there is no sun for half the year in the Arctic, and the new days only begin when the mythical hunter, often portrayed as a bear, kills the female reindeer. When deer would appear in myths and folktales, they were often portrayed as objective goals of heroic quests, not unlike the real-life role of prey to a hunter. The Greco-Roman hero Hercules, for his third labor, had to capture the Cyrenian hind, a deer with golden antlers, that was fast enough to outrun an arrow in flight. It was only after a full year of continuous pursuit, and no shortage of cunning and patience, that the hero succeeded in catching the mystical deer. A legendary deer of Slovenian mythology, known as Slatorog or Golden Horn, possessed a pair of golden antlers that were said to be the key to finding a lost treasure deep within Mount Triglav, making it the target of many hunters, including one who sought the fabled treasure in order to impress a woman that he fancied, only to wind up falling to his death, with Golden Horn watching from above. Another common story element involves a person being transformed into a deer as part of a divine punishment, or sometimes as an evil curse. In Greek mythology, a hunter named Actaeon found himself in an unfamiliar part of a forest, and he accidentally caught a glimpse of the goddess Artemis as she bathed in a spring. So that he may never boast of seeing her in the nude, Artemis transformed Actaeon into a stag with a fine set of antlers. Actaeon fled into the forest and soon caught the attention of his loyal hunting dogs, who unknowingly ran down their master and brutally killed him. In the grim fairy tale Brother and Sister, the title Brother and Sister were on the run from their wicked witch stepmother, who in a magical attack cursed all of the natural springs of the region to magically transform any person who drank from them into an animal. The brother unwittingly drank from one of the springs and he was transformed into a stag a curse which lasted until the witch was burned at the stake many years later. In the Fenian cycle of Irish mythology, a woman named Scythe was mystically transformed into a doe by the druid Ferdorok after she had spurned his advances. It was not until she encountered the hero Finn McCool that the spell was finally broken and she went on to marry the powerful warrior. Scythe would again be transformed into a doe by the vengeful druid, never to be seen again. Finn hunted for her tirelessly, but he never found her, instead finding their son Basheen in the form of a fawn who like his mother transformed into a human being upon seeing Finn. But deer have had a number of other roles in mythology and animal fables. Many of them are benevolent towards humans and other creatures, such is the case for the team of eight magical reindeer who pull Santa Claus' sleigh on the night of Christmas Eve. Some, however, are outright dangerous. The peritons of Roman mythology were depicted as stags with eagle-like wings who would swoop down on unsuspecting people and devour them viciously. In the Ramayana of Hindu mythology, a rakshasa named Maricha took the form of a deer as part of a plot for the demon king Ravana to kidnap Rama's wife Sita. The deer woman of Native American folklore, either portrayed as a beautiful doe or as a half-woman, half-deer hybrid, was a vengeful spirit who attacked men who had been cruel to women and children. Yet perhaps the most famous of mystical deer is the white stag. Across countless cultures, the white stag is a majestic and elusive creature that represents purity with the power to perpetually evade capture and to bring about great change in the lives of those who see it. In Arthurian legend, to see the white stag was a sign for the knights of the round table that it was opportune time to embark on a quest. In Celtic legend, the white stag was a messenger of the Otherworld appearing to those who were about to trespass against the gods and other immortal beings, such as in the Mabinogion when Puyil hunted in the grounds belonging to Aran. In Hungarian folklore, the brothers Hunnar and Magar chased a white stag that led them to an unknown and fertile land which would one day become Hungary. In Brazil, the white stag was known as Anyanga and is a magical defender of other animals. While it is possible to see a white deer in reality, a condition caused by a form of leucism, The white stag is nevertheless revered with great respect by many cultures and has been utilized heavily in heraldic and totemic imagery. As a result of being found in many parts of the world and being integral to the survival of early mankind, deer have been featured in myths and legends for thousands of years. They have been connected to gods and spirits and immortal beings, shown in both benevolent and malevolent lights, and acted as unreachable goals for heroes and protagonists to pursue. Today, while deer are still hunted for both meat and for sport, they are nevertheless admired for their beauty and their natural assets of strength, fertility, and unexplainable majesty. We must remember that deer are an important part of this world, integral parts in their respective environments. To lose them would risk ecological imbalance and the loss of some of Earth's most fascinating creatures. Keep in mind, deer are neither inherently good nor evil. They are but animals, doing what they do in order to survive in a harsh and unforgiving world.