Stag

“ And now a gallant stag is roused—a stag of ten branches. He scents the dogs as the wind blows from them to him, he shakes the dewdrops from his flanks, he listens one moment to the clamour of the noisy pack of canine foes, he shakes his head disdainfully, and rushes on his headlong course. The dogs bark and bay, the horns ring out, the voices of men and boys, cheering and shouting as they spur their willing steeds, join the discord. ”

“ Indeed, it is only for a few weeks in every year that the stag is his perfect self, and those weeks, with a small margin before and after, constitute what is called the stag-hunting season, a season of relief to the farmer whose turnip crops have been ruined by the herd's depredations, a season of anxiety to the master of the Devon and Somerset staghounds, a season of delight to him who loves the chase. ”

“ Year by year while trouble, sickness, hopes and longings get blotted from our recollection, the printed page or glance at whip and spur, shall revive with more than pristine splendour, the memory of the chase.
And what of the stag? Well, the stag's life is not, I fear, a happy one; for him no sooner is one trouble past than another is upon him. During the summer his horns are growing and keep him in constant irritation and anxiety. The velvet is hardly lost when the fever of the rutting season consumes him. ”

“ As it was the first giant stag John had had a chance of firing at, I readily granted him the first shot, and allowed him to stalk the stag. The majestic animal, hit by my comrade's deadly bullet, fell on its knee in the midst of a roar, raised its head once or twice, and then fell lifeless on the scanty grass that covered the rock. John could not master his delight, and ran up to the stag, by doing which he put an end to our sport here for this morning, as all the deer flew at the sight of him. The stag had six-and-twenty tines, and a pair of colossal antlers, whose ends were like shovels. ”

“ Each breath was a gasp, yet he stay'd not his speed.
Twice the dust and foam had been wash'd
By the mountain torrent that over them dash'd;
But still the stag held on his way,
Till a forest of pine trees before them lay,
And bounding and crashing boughs declare
The stag and the hunter have enter'd there.
On, on they went, till a greenwood screen
Lay Amirald and his prey between:
He has heard the creature sink on the ground,
And the branches give way at his courser's bound.
The spent stag on the grass is laid ”

“ The stag represents the luminous forms that appear in the cloudy or the nocturnal forest; these, therefore, are now lightning and thunderbolts, now the cloud itself from which the lightning and thunderbolts are discharged, now the moon in the gloom of night. The mythical stag is nearly always either entirely luminous or else spotted; when it is black it is of a diabolical nature, and represents the whole sky of night. Sometimes the luminous stag is a form assumed by the demon of the forest to compass the ruin of the hero. ”

“ From the gully's depth the wreck of him;
His fall had been stayed by the stag beneath
Who cushioned and saved the neck of him.
But the rest of his body — why, doctors said,
Whatever could break was broken;
Legs, arms, ribs, all of him looked like a toast
In a tumbler of port-wine soaken. ⁠200
"That your life is left you, thank the stag!" ”

“ The express was ready cocked when the stag recommenced sniffing and gazing, now he turns and walks away: the wind is shifty, and to get it full in his nostrils he bears from us. Clearly he will not now pass our point near enough for a shot, so back to lower ground we "slither," and run forward at best speed to cut him out at another point. ”

“ Far ahead of them all she shot, like an arrow from the bow, and when at last the stag turned at bay in a pool, she was the first to reach him. When the rest had come up, and the huntsman had slain the stag, the king turned to her.
“Atalanta,” he said, “the trophy of this chase is thine, and my huntsman shall bear the head of the stag whithersoever thou shalt bid him. In token of our esteem, I beg thee to accept this ring. When thou lookest upon it, think kindly of an old man [152] whose heart is lonely, and who would fain have a daughter like thee.” ”

“ Their flight, and safely amorous descants sing.
XXII
Amid red roses and white lilies there,
Which the soft breezes freshen as they fly,
Secure the cony haunts, and timid hare,
And stag, with branching forehead broad and high. ”

“ The huntsman blows a jovial sound,
The dogs snuff up the gale;
The upland wilds they sweep along,
O’er fields, through brakes they fly,
The game is roused, too true the song,
This day a stag must die.
With a hey, ho, &c.
Poor stag; the dogs thy haunches gore,
The tears run down thy face,
The huntsman’s pleasure is no more,
His joys were in the chase ”

“ But, lying in that environment, one marvels yet more at the extreme caution displayed by wild animals; one has exceptional opportunity of admiring the exquisitive gifts bestowed by nature upon her ferae. Here is a young stag coming straight along, down-wind, ere yet the beat has begun, and in a desolate spot which to human sense could betray absolutely no feature or taint of danger. Suddenly he becomes rigid, arrested in mid-career—sniffing at a pure untainted air, yet conscious somehow of something wrong somewhere! ”

“ If, I say, while these sacred rites, which are in common to genus omne animantium, are in agitation between the stag and his mistress, any hostile beasts should venture too near, on the first hint given by the frighted hind, fierce and tremendous rushes forth the stag to the entrance of the thicket; there stands he centinel over his love, stamps the ground with his foot, and with his horns brandished aloft in air, proudly provokes the apprehended foe to combat. ”

“ IV I dare say you have heard of the hunter and sportsman's saint and protector, Saint Hubert, and of the noble stag which appeared to him in the forest, with the holy cross between his antlers. I have paid my homage to that saint every year in good fellowship, and seen this stag a thousand times either painted in churches, or embroidered in the stars of his knights; so that, upon the honor and conscience of a good sportsman, I hardly know whether there may not have been formerly, or whether there are not such crossed stags even at this present day. ”

“ The Monarch of the Glen seems to be a picture caught in just this way. The very life and character of the animal are transferred to the canvas as by a snap shot of the camera. The stag has heard some strange sound or scented some new danger, and, mounting a hill, looks abroad to see if all is well. The responsibility of the herd is his, and he has a tender care for the doe and the young deer. He must always be on the alert. ”

“ The traveller proceeded to tell how he had chased a very swift stag, for a twelvemonth together, without ever stopping to take breath, and had at last caught it by the antlers, and carried it home alive. ”

“ Stag-hunting is in some measure a summer amusement also; but that chase is generally much too long to be ventured on in an evening. It would carry the sportsman too far distant from their homes. It is absolutely necessary, therefore, in pursuing the stag, to have the whole day before them. ”

“ Luminous stag and black stag.—The Marutas drawn by antelopes, and dressed in antelopes' skins.—The stag, the gazelle, and the antelope as forms assumed or created by the demon to ruin several heroes whilst they hunt.—Marîćas.—Indras kills the mṛigas.—The solar hero or heroine transformed into a stag, a gazelle, or an antelope.—Aktaion.—Artemis and the stag.—The stags of the Yggdrasill.—The stag Eikthyrner.—The hind as a nurse.—The hind and the old woman on the 1st of January.—The hind and the snow ”

“ For on land or air there is always something excessive and hindering; as arms that swing at the sides of a man, and which the mind must remember. The stag has legs to be tucked away for sleep, and untucked for movement; and the bird has wings that must be folded and pecked and cared for. But the fish has but one piece from his nose to his tail. He is complete, single and unencumbered. ”

“ If anyone at the kalends of January goes about as a stag or a bull; that is, making himself into a wild animal and dressing in the skin of a herd animal, and putting on the heads of beasts; those who in such wise transform themselves into the appearance of a wild animal, penance for three years because this is devilish.' ”

“ The stag, and most wild animals on the contrary, who suffer much from want in the winter, have no superabundance, nor are in a state to engender till they have recruited themselves during the summer; and it is then the rutting season commences, and during which he exhausts himself so much that he remains the whole winter in a state of langour. ”

“ A fire was burning in the middle, big enough to roast a stag, which was in fact being done; a splendid stag with its huge antlers was stuck on a spit, being slowly turned round between the hewn trunks of two fir trees. An oldish woman, tall and strong enough to be a man dressed up, sat by the fire throwing on logs from time to time. ”

“ These stags were preserved and fed here because the senate, every year, according to an ancient custom, feasted publicly on a stag, which was therefore always at hand in the ditch for such a festival, in case princes or knights interfered with the city's right of chase outside, or the walls were encompassed or besieged by an enemy. This pleased us much, and we wished that such a lair for tame animals could have been seen in our times. ”

“ So from faint nebulæ bright worlds are born;
So worlds return to vapour. Dreams design
Most solid lasting things, and from the eye
That searches life, death evermore retreats.
⁠The shadowy chase has vanished; round the swell
Of the near mountain sweeps a bounding stag—
Round whirls a god-like Giant close behind—
O'er a fallen trunk the stag with slippery hoofs
Stumbles—his sleek knees lightly touch the grass—
Upward he springs—but in his forward leap,
The Giant's hand hath caught him fast beneath
One shoulder tuft, and lifted high in air,
Sustains! ”

“ CX.
"'Tis these befriend the timid trembling stag,
When, with a bursting heart beset with fears,
He feels his saving speed begin to flag;
For then they quench the fatal taint with tears,
And prompt fresh shifts in his alarum'd ears,
So piteously they view all bloody morts ”

“ The next moment the stag broke cover with the whole pack hard upon his heels. The hardiest and most enthusiastic hunters followed the hunt in all its windings, encouraging the hounds, ridiculing false moves, and in every way assisting as far as possible in turning the stag towards some difficult piece of country where he could be more easily tired out and brought to bay. ”

“ The stag, poor silly beast, who had been dozing away his time in a thicket at about half a mile distance, was soon roused by the very unwished appearance of the huntsmen, and taking his path down the principal avenue, bounded away towards the open country, calculating, more wisely than the beast recorded by our old friend Æsop, that the boughs might encumber his head gear. The horns sounded loud, the couples were unloosed, the dogs slipped, and away went man and beast in the pursuit. ”

“ The weapons generally used in hunting the stag were bows and arrows. It was a barbed arrow which pierced the breast of the second William, when he was hunting the stag in the wilds of the New Forest. Our cut (No. 76) , from the Trinity College Psalter, represents a horseman hunting the stag. The noble animal is closely followed by a brace of hounds, and just as he is turning up a hill, the huntsman aims an arrow at him. As far as we can gather from the few authorities in which it is alluded to, the Saxon peasantry were not unpractised hands at the bow. ”

“ Why, a stag is turned out into the country, and then, fly where he will, a whole pack of dogs follow him in full cry; and a number of gentlemen, mounted on fine horses, gallop after with the greatest possible speed: and they don’t mind what they come to; for they leap over gates, and hedges, and ditches, and ride down hills that are almost as steep as precipices; and at last, when the stag can run no further, he is caught by the dogs, who kill him ”

“ With one thrust I can kill a man; it is a fine thing to be a stag!" Just then the sound of the huntsman's bugle was heard in the distance, and the stag precipitately fled, followed by his wondering child. ”

“ What a vast tall beast must a full- grown stag be! I have been told some arrive at ten feet and an half! This poor creature had at first a female companion of the same species, which died the spring before. In the same garden was a young stag, or red deer, between whom and this moose it was hoped that there might have been a breed; but their inequality of height must have always been a bar to any commerce of the amorous kind. ”

“ Oesterley (ch. 110) , and Legenda aurea of Jacobus à Voragine. This hero-saint is drawn away from his companions by the appearance of a stag, whom he pursues, and which turns out afterwards to be Christ himself. The stag has thus a symbolical meaning, and is of purely Christian origin.
The greatest modification in the tale, however, is that wrought in the character and attributes of the Holy Grail. I proceed, therefore, to investigate this second most important element of the legend. ”

“ The soldier had a great talent for music; he possessed a fine voice, and this he made use of the best he knew, while the man drew him along from one place to another. Every one stopped and listened—a golden stag which sang so beautifully they had never seen before. At length they passed the Royal palace. When the king learned the news of the singing stag, he came out to look at it, and was much pleased to hear that it could sing all the tunes which he liked best. He took such a fancy to the stag that he wished to buy it ”