Illustration © Kaitlynn Copithorne
Walking through the countryside, the cuffs of my trousers wet with dew, I had the feeling that something momentous was about to happen. It was a Saturday afternoon. My husband and I were several hours outside of London. We had taken a public footpath through the woods, not knowing where it would lead. And I can’t say what it was about that day. There was something about the way silence pervaded that hillside, the cool autumnal air, the way the leaves were on the edge of turning. Far off, where neighbouring fields met the woods, we could make out small red deer, grazing.
Eventually, we emerged from this quiet wilderness onto a busy country road. A sinking feeling; we had missed the last bus. Our feet hurt and we were tired. Dusk was on her way. There was no pavement on this narrow hedge-lined road—it would be too dangerous to walk at night. There was no other option; we would have to return the way we came.
Low on morale, we crossed the stile and began our slow descent. As we walked, the sound of traffic lessened until it was again deadly quiet. We continued like this for some time. And then we heard the sound of cracking twigs, and we turned to the ancient woodland to our left. The red deer were closer now, playing in the woods, watching us between the trees. There was a children’s den made of sticks. With some heartache, I thought of my own childhood building similar uninhabitable dwellings in such places. By day it would feel enchanting, by night like the nightmarish realm of Pan. And then more sounds. Another creature was approaching.
First came that primordial fear of facing the darkness from which we came. It took a while for me to register what I was seeing. A stag was gazing at us through the leaves, its antlers blending with the tree branches. But it was no ordinary stag. I was looking into the eyes of a White Stag.
At once, all of the childhood stories I had heard of Herne the hunter and the search for the White Stag returned to me. Without taking my eyes from it, I asked my husband if he could see it too—if it were really white. He said he could. And we spent some moments like that, eye-to-eye with this beast of myth and legend. Eventually, the White Stag turned on its hooves and cantered back into the thicket. We stayed for a while, awestruck. Should we pursue it? Two of those red deer appeared in the distance, skipping in a forest clearing. A gut feeling told me we shouldn’t.
With a new surge of energy, we continued on our way. When we had left the woods and the fields, and we were back in town, I asked my husband if we really saw it, half doubting myself again. Yes, we did, he confirmed. We had both seen it. And I felt like we were standing on the precipice of some great change.
Long has humankind associated white animals with the Otherworld and the divine. From the white peace dove to the unicorn, white brings to mind purity, wholeness, and unity. For those unfamiliar with the White Stag, he is rare and elusive; when sighted, he makes headlines. The White Stag shows up in British folklore, myth, and legend as an omen of change. His presence may signal that the Otherworld is near—or a portent of a new adventure. The exact repercussions of an encounter are story-dependent, but one cannot look upon the White Stag without living through change—or going through some kind of personal transformation.
I think my first White Stag was in the Narnia books. In the final chapter of C. S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the Pevensie children have grown up and become Kings and Queens of Narnia, ruling from the Castle of Cair Paravel. Years have passed since they first entered this world through the wardrobe. It is the golden age for this land; the wicked witch Jadis has been banished; faith has been restored in Aslan. Like King Arthur, the four children have been granted divine right to rule.
“So they lived in great joy and if ever they remembered their life in this world it was only as one remembers a dream. And one year it fell out that Tumnus (who was a middle-aged Faun by now and beginning to be stout) came down river and brought them news that the White Stag had once more appeared in his parts—the White Stag who would give you wishes if you caught him. So these two Kings and two Queens with the principal members of their court, rode a-hunting with horns and hounds in the Western Woods to follow the White Stag. And they had not hunted long before they had a sight of him. And he led them a great pace over rough and smooth and through thick and thin, till the horses of all the courtiers were tired out and only these four were still following. And they saw the stag enter into a thicket where their horses could not follow.”
After a lengthy discussion the Kings and Queens decide to pursue the White Stag into the thicket:
“So these Kings and Queens entered the thicket, and before they had gone a score of paces they all remembered that the thing they had seen was called a lamp-post, and before they had gone twenty more, they noticed that they were making their way not through branches but through coats. And next moment they all came tumbling out of a wardrobe door into the empty room, and they were no longer Kings and Queens in their hunting array but just Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy in their old clothes. It was the same day and the same hour of the day on which they had all gone into the wardrobe to hide. Mrs. Macready and the visitors were still talking in the passage; but luckily they never came into the empty room and so the children weren’t caught.”
Re-reading this ending, I felt a great sadness. It has been theorised that Aslan, a metaphor of Christ, here takes the guise of the White Stag. Narnia’s Kings and Queens have done what they needed to do. Now Aslan will guide the Pevensie children back to their own world. Not only do they lose Narnia, but they have lost the poetic truth we romantics dream about and attempt to carry over. They have returned to Plato’s cave, to the real world where enchantment is not so apparent. The memory of Narnia will soon be lost to them as this world was lost to them as Kings and Queens at Cair Paravel.
C. S. Lewis, like his friend J. R. R. Tolkien, was Christian but freely infused pre-Christian folklore with a Christian message. Christianity is no stranger to adopting and reinterpreting deities from pre-Christian religions. The past is always somewhere in the present, even if its meaning has changed in generations of Chinese whispers. We see it in St Brigid of Kildare, a reinterpretation of the Celtic goddess Brigit. Similarly, the White Stag has been adopted as a symbol of Jesus Christ, and sightings have been regarded as significant. In North Wales, legend tells of a haunted church construction site, and a hermit who advised the builders to instead build where the White Stag had been sighted. They did, and today that church is called All Saints Old Parish Church.
I always thought that the White Stag, like the grail, could never be caught or found. It could only be seen at a distance. But many a hero has pursued it and killed it. At the beginning of Erec and Enide, a tale from Chrétien de Troyes’ Arthurian Romances, King Arthur tells his knights he wishes to revive an ancient custom and hunt the White Stag. Sir Gawain is displeased by this, warning that this hunt will bring him neither thanks nor goodwill. Whoever kills the White Stag, he says, will be able to kiss the fairest maiden of them all. All are already taken by bold knights, he reminds Arthur, and to contend their love would only result in great ill. Undeterred, King Arthur sets out into the forest of adventure in pursuit of the elusive White Stag. He finds it and he kills it. The hunting of the White stag serves as a catalyst for an adventure that takes Erec, this tale’s protagonist, on a chivalrous journey in pursuit of a fair maiden; to take Enide for a wife, he must defeat giants and less chivalrous knights.
A parallel story to Erec and Enide is found in the Welsh Mabinogi of Pwyll. It is unknown whether this is a retelling of Chrétien’s tale, or whether both are based on an older story, perhaps from the oral tradition. Arthurian stories—and the Mabinogi—are Christian stories. King Arthur legends laud divine right to rule. Arthur pulls a magical sword from the stone when no other man can. Though still dead, he sleeps beneath many a hill, destined to one day be resurrected, or awakened, to save England. Even so, these tales are believed to contain many traces of pre-Christian myths and beliefs. There are mages, giants, prophecies; humans that transform into animals and vice-versa.
Many of the practices by cunning folk, like communicating with animal familiars, are perhaps remnants from a time when we saw ourselves as closer to the natural world. When you go far enough into the past, it becomes speculative fiction. But go deeper into this speculative past, and the cave paintings in this region are believed by some to have been painted by Paleolithic Shamans in trance states. Though many do depict hunts, there is no privileging of humankind over all the other animals. All are involved in the same dance.
In modern-day Britain, we often forget about the wildlife with whom we share this land. We have killed off so many of the animals that once roamed here: the bears, the lynxes, the bison, the wolves. Our folklore has always spoken of hunting, of picking, of gathering, but it has often encouraged respect towards all living things and sustainable consumption. We can see in fairy folklore an emotional ecology perhaps essential for living in harmony with the world outside ourselves. In Ireland, ill fortune will befall whoever destroys a fairy path. Similarly, in Iceland, roads have been diverted to avoid displeasing the local elves. It is often said that witchcraft is the oldest religion; at its rawest, it entails seeing the hidden strings which connect us all. Reading stories may well enable us to invoke the White Stag and the Salmon of Knowledge and tap into their wisdom and the forgotten collective unconscious.
Today we can still see echoes of the White Stag’s mystical importance in many place names, from White Hart Lane in North London—where coincidentally my husband and I used to live—to the many inns and taverns named in its honour. We may have forgotten so many of the stories of its otherworldliness and elusiveness, we may doubt its existence, but it is still out there, in the last of our woodlands, with important messages to impart to those ready to listen. To see a White Stag is indicative of transformation, a catalyst for change. Unfortunately, the White Stag is still a victim of poachers and trophy hunters. But take heed: no good can come from killing it. Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Scout movement, said this: “The White Stag has a message for you. Hunters of old pursued the miraculous stag, not because they expected to kill it, but because it led them in the joy of the chase to new and fresh adventures, and so to capture happiness.”
When we got home from this encounter, I consulted the cards. I read the Anima Mundi deck; it mirrors how I dream, and so I have always found it more inspiring and insightful than more anthropocentric decks. Shuffling the cards, I asked for messages from the White Stag. I pulled the Hierophant, a card I have never pulled for myself before. A stag looked at me head-on, in the same way the White Stag did earlier that day, and its meaning for me was deeply resonant. In the weeks to come, I think about how I’ve always been looking for the White Stag, in one way or another. The White Stag’s promise, like the Holy Grail, is something unattainable, at least in this world. This is art, this is magic and this is occult knowledge. The White Stag’s magic is not found in killing it, nor chasing it, tormenting it, or keeping it captive, but in catching a glimpse of it through the trees, an elusive messenger from beyond the veil, and revelling in the knowledge that we have not yet conquered and dissected every inch of this world, nor perhaps should we. There is so much out there, unseen and unknown, and these unsolvable mysteries make life worth living.