Stag (Wild Nature)
The king of the forest, the stag deer represents dignity and potency in life. By bringing the quality of dignity to passion, the stag focuses the passionate, wild, and sometimes unruly forces within and outside our own natures.
Invoking the Union of Focus and Passion.
The stag represents the wildness of nature. Associated with Cernunnos, the Lord of the Animals, and the goddesses of the sacred hunt, the stag acquired divine status among the Iron Age Celts. The stag's noble presence among the animals, its branching antlers resembling mature trees, and potency and aggression during the rutting season, epitomize the great forests of old Europe over which the stag presided as King of the Forest. The stag represents the noble and wild passions within all of nature.
In the Camonica Valley of northern Italy, cave walls contain rock drawings dating from the late Neolithic people through the Bronze and Iron Age Celts. The Celts were renowned hunters and their numerous stag images on cave walls indicate a reverence for the stag and an eagerness for the sacred hunt. Images from the fourth and seventh centuries portray stag like or antlered hunters, suggesting shape-shifting or, at least, an intimate correspondence with the quarry. Dominating over three-quarters of the religious imagery, drawings of the stag are often blended with another powerful Celtic image, the sun. At times, the rays of the sun appear as antlers, signifying a common sovereignty. Attesting to the stag's noble, if not divine, status, one rock drawing shows a circle of figures dancing or praying around a stag with tremendous antlers.
A synthesis of archaeological and mythological evidence points to the stag as symbolizing wild nature, the King of the Forest. Ancient Gaul was heavily forested, as was England and Ireland. The stag's antlers branching like a tree into the sky, together with its speed, dignity, and carriage, imply a noble signature among the forest animals.
Typically, the stag is associated in Celtic mythology with Cernunnos, the Lord of the Animals. The Gundestrup Cauldron depicts an antlered Cernunnos with his familiar companion, the true stag. Perhaps resplendent of an older tradition, goddesses are closely linked with the stag, especially when power and fertility are invoked. The Irish goddess Flidhais, who kept herds of deer as though they were cattle, seems to personify the wild and fertile nature of the surrounding forest. A goddess presiding over the sacred hunt of the stag was found buried with a Celtic warrior in an Iron Age site at Strettweg in Austria.
Lastly, in the Christian era, the deer is associated with St. Patrick in Ireland: The king has sent men to ambush Patrick on every road leading to his court at Tara. Patrick passes the soldiers with his company of eight young clerics, followed by Benen carrying Patrick's writing tablets on his back. The men pass unnoticed, appearing as deer followed by a fawn with a white bird perched on its shoulder.
The stag's sovereignty amid the wildness of nature is quiet, alert, and reserved - ample balance for the virility and power within. In walking quietly and attentively in danger, remaining calm and alert under stress, and meeting each situation with the right balance of speed and strength, the stag models inner and outer poise and self-control. A calm and steady focus will allow you to remain calm in any situation, as though you were walking serenely in a forest. However unruly your nature or the situation, a one-pointed focus will bring power and strength to your actions.
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