Follow your (white) hart

Whether a harbinger of death, a religious symbol or an inspiration for artists and poets, the white deer has long loomed large in our imagination, as Deborah Nicholls-Lee discovers

- Deborah Nicholls-Lee

NOBLE, innocent, a fugitive from a fairy tale—there is something magical about a white deer. It’s unsurprising then, that this awe-inspiring animal features so widely in our folklore and literature. Celtic mythology saw the white deer, with its ghost-like appearance, as a sacred messenger from a supernatural realm, heralding change—a quest, perhaps —announcing a transgression or conveying a warning. The notion has endured for centuries. Five hundred years ago, on the Isle of Arran, it was believed that a white stag would materialise at Brodick Castle when the death of a Hamilton clan chief was imminent.

Pursued in vain by King Arthur’s court, the elusive white stag was the ultimate trophy, symbolising Man’s futile search for spiritual fulfilment and glory and exposing his vanity. Those who hunt the white stag are led deep into the woods away from safety and to kill it frequently unleashes chaos. Across time and space, Native American legend has it that a Chickasaw youth was never seen again after he shot a white deer in exchange for his sweetheart’s hand in marriage. The curse saw his beloved live out her days alone and forever haunted by an apparition of the white deer that, when the moon was full, would appear in the smoke curling from her campfire— pierced by an arrow, yet running still. Some even speculate today whether Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s shooting of a white deer in the autumn 1913 presaged his assassination the following summer and the years of bloodshed that ensued.