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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in deer hunt

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
People of the Deer

Witch-folk. We've pretty much always been a People of the Deer.

Sure, we've hunted larger game, and smaller, but down the years it's mostly deer that have kept the cauldron full and the family fed. Back in the old days, “deer” used to mean pretty much any kind of wild animal, did you know that? But now, a deer is...well, a deer. That tells you something about how important they've always been. To our people, deer are the animal par excellence.

Back in old tribal days, when we called ourselves the Dobunni (and later the Hwicce, which is where we get the name “witch” from), we were, admittedly, a People of the Herd, and our god (and our priests) wore bull's horns mostly.

But even then, just to the north lived the Cornovii, People of the Horn, and for them the god wore antlers. They're still fine hunters, the Cornovii, and being such near neighbors, there's been a lot of marrying back and forth down the years. My father's mother's people come from the old Cornovii hunting runs, in fact.

Well, it just makes sense. Unlike bulls, or elk for that matter—not to mention moose—a deer is human-sized, just about the same weight and volume that we are. There's something human about a deer. It's all a matter of scale.

Up here in the North Country, Samhain marks the time of the rut. Just now, the deer that will feed the People in years to come are being bred.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Stag of Light

Daddy, why do people put lighted deer in their front yards?

We're headed towards the tail-end of November, and the front yards in my neighborhood are suddenly sprouting deer.

These are not the wild animals, although here within sight of downtown Minneapolis we've got a sizable urban herd. (They mostly live in the wooded Mississippi Valley that runs through the heart of town.) No, these are Yule Deer.

(Up here in Snow Country, if you want to decorate outdoors, you've got to do it early.)

As a pagan, and myself a worshiper of the Deer Man, I find it deeply amusing that one of the foremost symbols of American Christmas: the Secular Holiday should be the Deer.

The connection is pretty tenuous. Presumably these are the reindeer that pull Santa's sleigh. Of course, the Deer of Light that you see in people's yards are clearly not reindeer. You can tell because reindeer have a very distinctive antler configuration. No, the Yule Deer are based—insofar as there's a natural prototype at all—on the American Whitetail, as (after all) they should be.

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    I remember Kate Seredy's The White Stag well. "Little Father" Attila leads his people--the- Huns--to the Promised Land--Hungary--b
  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    In "Christianity the origins of a Pagan Religion" Philippe Walter connotes white deer with Halloween. His examples are of Saint H

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Hunter's Law

 This is Hunter's Law,

which the Horned

first taught us long ago:

Kill cleanly.

Use everything.

Take what you need,

Last modified on

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