Extinction rebellion

The huge Irish elk was a fearsome foe for our forefathers — one of many, says Richard Negus

- Richard Negus

Last Christmas I didn’t buy any greetings cards. Instead, I came up with the wheeze of creating home-made affairs with a hand-drawn picture by my nine-year-old son. After a family meeting it was agreed that “reindeer in a landscape” would be the perfect subject for Negus junior’s artistic efforts. My wife and I left him to his art while we opened a bottle of sherry.

A few festive glasses later we returned to survey his work. The beast he revealed looked markedly unreindeer-like. While a reindeer’s legs are stolidly stumpy, like a cloven-footed Shetland pony, this animal had limbs like a borzoi. Reindeer are short coupled, yet this brute stood over the ground like a drum horse. The shock of seeing the antlers he had drawn, all bulky satellite dish palmation set atop a red deer-like head, made it necessary for us to refill our glasses.

“That is a remarkable reindeer,” I ventured, breathing Croft Original fumes over the young Landseer. “It isn’t a reindeer,” he replied. “Reindeer are boring, this is a megaloceros.”

Our friends and relations didn’t receive a hand-made Christmas card; we forgot the last postal date. We do now, however, have a delightful line drawing of an Irish elk affixed to our fridge by a magnet.

Ice age