White stag

"As for the White Roebuck [Stag], how many kings in how many fairy tales have not chased this beast through enchanted forests and been cheated of their quarry?"

From "The White Goddess" by Robert Graves

In Arthurian legend, the White Stag (the White Hart) is a mystical beast pursued, but never caught by the Knights of the Round Table...

The usual explanation why the White Stag can never be caught by a Knight is that this hunt is an allegory for hunt for sacred knowledge, which the Knight is still not ready (or worthy) to receive and understand.

I wonder if this "sacred knowledge" is "animal calendar marker"? 🙂

Let me explain what I mean. Today I read about St. Eustace.

He was a Roman general who, while hunting, came upon a stag with Christ on the cross between its antlers, after which Eustace converted to Christianity. Here he is depicted kneeling between a horse and a stag...

Interesting, right...Apparently, for medieval Christians, a White Stag was a symbol for Christ. BTW, remember my post "Deer killing snake" about the actual meaning of the  "deer killing snake" scene?

Deer was, by Early Christians, identified with Christ, because according to Physiologus, "deer kills snake/dragon"???

In my post "Winter deer" I explained that deer is an animal calendar marker for dark, cold, wet half of the year in Europe, Sep/Oct/Nov-Mar/Apr/May. Why? 

Because the deer mating season, characterised by wild stag fights, takes place in (Sep/Oct/Nov)...

The dark, cold, wet half of the year in Europe, Sep/Oct/Nov-Mar/Apr/May Winter is also the only time when deer can be seen with fully grown antlers...

I think that the fact that a stag with fully grown antlers is a symbol of winter, can help us understand why in Arthurian legend, the White Stag (the White Hart) is a mystical beast pursued, but never caught by the Knights of the Round Table...

The reason is that we have a White Stag, winter, midwinter, winter solstice...Being chased by a Knight on a (White) Horse, symbol of summer, midsummer, summer solstice...As a calendar marker horse can only follow deer, never catch it...

I first talked about the potential allegorical/calendaric meaning of the "deer hunt" scene in my post "King John":

Does anyone else think that this picture, allegedly showing King John on a stag hunt, looks strange, and may be hiding something in plain sight?

Like animal calendar markers horse (summer) chasing deer (winter)?

Is this King John or an allegorical depiction of the sun god on a white solar horse on the St John('s day), Midsummer, Summer solstice?

(White) Horse is one of the most widespread solar symbols. Celtic solar horse coin. 

Articles about solar horse (equid)

Iran "Water carrier equid", "Dioscuri plate from Iran"

Mesopotamia "Shamash playing with the solar horse", "Sun god from Tell Brak"

India "Hayagriva"

China "Longma", "Three legged crow", "Mythical beast from Xian"

Levant "Alexamenos graffito", "Goddess on a horse", "Unicorn"

Europe "Archaic rider", "Beotian solar pyxis", "Pegasus and chimera", "King John", "The horseman", "St George of the sprouting crown"

Slavic Sun god Svetovid, also rode on a white horse, and white horses were kept in his temples...I wrote about that in my post "Svetovid"...

I Serbia, Vidovdan, Christian holidays, originally The day of Vid (Light) is celebrated close to Summer Solstice...

The reason why horse is a solar symbol is because horse fertility is governed by the sunlight, meaning horses mating season, which starts in Apr/May and which is characterised by wild stallion fights, peaks on summer solstice...

Which is why we find horse zodiac symbol disguised as Dioskuri, divine twin horsemen. The guys who wanted to marry "the daughters of the white horse". They mark Summer Solstice, the peak of the horse mating season...

So if a living stallion is a solar symbol of summer solstice...Then a dead mare seems like a good symbol for winter solstice...Right?

"Mari Lwyd" meaning "Gray Mare" is an ancient Welsh tradition celebrating the end of the Christmas season (taking place from Christmas into January)...Analysis of this tradition and a possibility that it originally was part of the solar horse cult can be found in my post "Gray mare"... 

You also might find these articles about the origin and the meaning of unicorn as a solar symbol interesting: "Unicorn", "Reem"...

That virgin btw is Virgo, Aug/Sep...She "calms" 🙂 the unicorn (horse mating season ends in Sep/Oct)...

So we have:

A White Stag, winter, midwinter, winter solstice...Winter solar symbol...Birth of Christ...

A White Horse, summer, midsummer, summer solstice...Summer solar symbol...Birth of John the Baptist...

St John the Baptist says this about Jesus: "He must increase and I must decrease." What does this statement mean? 

Sun at #WinterSolstice and #SummerSolstice???

From my post "He must increase and I must decrease"...

BTW, in Europe, and in Slavic part of Europe in particular where St John is known as Ivan, St John's day,  (Slavic Ivandan, Ivanje) is a completely solar festival, dedicated to the blazing summer solstice sun, Beautiful John (Slavic Lepi Ivo)...

Knowing this, it is interesting that St Eustace is celebrated on the 20th of Sep, basically on the day of the Autumn Equinox. When the light gives way to darkness. Is this random?

I don't think so, cause Autumn Equinox is the exact time when horses stop mating (light half of the year symbolised by horse as animal calendar marker ends) and deer start mating (dark half of the year symbolised by deer as animal calendar marker starts)...

Interestingly, even thought we read again and again that in the Arthurian legends the White Stag is never caught, King Arthur actually eventually does catch and kill the White Stag...

We can read about this in "Érec and Énide" by Chrétien de Troyes. The hunt takes place at Easter (Mar/Apr/May), when stags shed their antlers, and when all stags suddenly disappear, die (without antlers they look like hinds)...

I wonder if the reason why it is the King Arthur (Bear, symbol of spring/summer) 

who manages to kill the Stag, symbol of winter/spring?

I talked about bear as the symbol of spring in my posts "Bear dancers" about Romanian bear dance. It is in the spring (Feb/Mar) that mother bears emerge from their dens with their cubs...

Romanian New Year ritual bear dance:

 

Bear dances (spring, summer, autumn)

Bear falls cause a demon took over him (winter) 

Bear is killed and bled to let the demon out (hibernation, death-rebirth)

Bear gets up and dances again (spring, summer...)

As well as in my post "Overpowering" about this this statue from Trier, where boar, animal calendar marker for winter, is "overpowered" by bear, animal calendar marker for spring (bears emerge from hibernation in Feb/May) and summer (bears start mating in Apr/May)...

One more thing. In the papers about the White Stag, we can read that "white stag is a symbol of otherworld, underworld". In continental Europe, Winter, "The White time of the year" is also the time of Death. Hence White Stag (Winter Stag) as the symbol of the other(under)world...

Also interesting. Depictions of a deer hunt found on medieval standing (tomb) stones found in Bosnia, are positioned in such a way, that deer is always leading the knight westward, "where west means death"...At least, according to this article.

According to Slavic folklore, west is where the entrance to the other(under)world is. Why? Cause this is where sun enters the other(under)world. 

I talked about the sun in the underworld in my post "Descending to Hades"...

One of my favourite frescoes: Christ's descent into Hades, fresco from the 12th c. Church of St. George, Kurbinovo, Macedonia... 

Just one last thing:

Christ was not only seen by early medieval Christians as White Deer (winter solstice sun). Christ was also seen as White Unicorn (summer solstice sun)...

So both the horse and the deer, both solar symbols for two halves of the same solar year, are Christ...

Christ is born on Winter Solstice, (re)birth day of the sun (god), he enters Jerusalem on a donkey, "animal of the (sun) gods and kings", and gets put on a cross, symbol of the sun (god)...Interesting...Early Christian "Alexamenos graffito", Rome. From my post "Alexemenos graffito"...

That's it. To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...