Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth
In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
Stags that Wear Torcs
One of the mysterious creatures that inhabit the dark forests of Arthurian lore is the stag with a crown around its neck.
This bizarre figure has entered heraldry and folklore as well. A stag gorged with a crown (French gorge = “throat”) appears on numerous coats of arms and pub signs.
The meaning is not far to find. The stag is the preeminently crowned animal—“crowned with antler”—and, as such, Lord of the Forest. Still: a crown around the neck? Weird.
Peeking from behind the High Medieval Dudgeon of much Arthurian lore one may sometimes see hints of something older and wilder: retroflections of the early Iron Age, post-Roman Keltic world that gave rise to the later material. And here, I suspect, we may find a key to understanding the stag gorged with a crown.
I've written elsewhere about the Old English word béag, which may variously be translated as “ring, circle, arm-ring, neck-ring, torc, crown.” In the Germanic and Keltic culture-spheres, the torc was a sign of nobility and lordship: hence its frequent association with the Horned God.
Shall we not read, then, as an icon of the antlered Lord of the Forest the stag gorged with a torc?
Redcoat crowned with antler
(in winter: blue)
that sit cross-legged
in the Mother's heart
(or: womb): to you,
to you, my Stag,
I make my prayer.
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