The deer was said to be a fairy creature that could pass between the world’s. Fionn’s wife Sabha became a deer when she went to the Otherworld. Beautiful women frequently became deer in many tales while fleeing from hunters. The Druid Tuan mac Carill is the sole survivor of a group of early Partholanian Irish settlers.
Adults shed velvet in April, young and poor condition animals shed later. It is also an important element of Hungarian mythology, which believed that a great white stag led the brothers Hunor and Magar to settle in Scythia. Artemis was a virgin and drew the attention and interest of many gods and men. However, it was only her hunting companion, Orion, that won her heart. It is believed that Orion was accidentally killed either by Artemis herself or by Gaia, the primordial goddess of the earth. Artemis is known as the goddess of the hunt and is one of the most respected of all the ancient Greek deities.
The Horned God is born at the winter solstice, marries the goddess at Beltane, and dies at the summer solstice. Romans sometimes portrayed him with three cranes flying above his head. He was often depicted holding a bag of money, or accompanied by a ram-headed serpent and a stag. Most notably is the famous Gundestrup cauldron discovered in Denmark. A new deity to gain major status in the Neo-Hittite era was Karhuhas , the ‘Stag God’.
The legend of Saint Hubertus (or “Hubert”) concerned an apparition of a stag with the crucifix between its horns, effecting the worldly and aristocratic Hubert’s conversion to a saintly life. His first born sons were his pride and they spent much time with their father, growing up in the palace and later they accompanied him on his many hunts. Nimrod was a famous and great hunter who loved savage usernames the sport (c.f. Bible, ‘like Nimrod, mighty hunter before the lord’). During one of his hunting expeditions he took his sons with him. During the hunt he spotted some game and separated from his sons to pursue it. In paleolithic cave paintings the figure of a shaman wears antlers as the deer-spirit, notably the figure being called “The Sorcerer” in the Cave Trois Frères in southern France.
It is thought that her name, and even the goddess herself, may even be pre-Greek. She was the daughter of Zeus, king of the gods, and the Titaness Leto and she has a twin brother, the god Apollo. Cerridwen represents the need for change; that a transformation is at hand. It is time to examine what circumstances in your life no longer serve you. Something must die so that something new and better can be born.
The Tuatha Dé Danann were defeated and consigned to mythology. Legend has it that they were allowed to stay in Ireland, but only underground. Thus they became the bearers of the fairies of Ireland, consigned to the underworld where they became known as ‘Aes sidhe’ (the people of the mound – fairy mounds). However, for Cat Form dps, the Everbloom Idol (also 20 badges from G’eras) works out as better dps in most realistic gear setups. Herne the Hunted is a parody of Herne the Hunter in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. He is a small god and the patron of those animals destined to end up as a “brief, crunchy squeak.”
The new skills and traditions that they introduced into Ireland were held in high regard by the peoples they conquered. The first was the ‘Stone of Fal’ which would scream when a true King of Ireland stood on it. It was later placed on the Hill of Tara, the seat of the High-Kings of Ireland. The second was the ‘Magic Sword of Nuadha’, which was capable of inflicting only mortal blows when used. The third was the ‘sling-shot of the Sun God Lugh’, famed for its accuracy when used. The final treasure was the ‘Cauldron of Daghda’ from which an endless supply of food issued.
In the Welsh tale of Culhwch and Olwen, the stag is one of the oldest animals in the world, along with the blackbird, the owl, the eagle and the salmon. In Greek myth, meanwhile, this animal is most prominently found as the Keryneian stag, a fantastic beast with golden horns and brass hooves. The Myths and Lore surrounding the Stag run across the world from Meandash, the mythic Saami Reindeer, all the way back to the earliest history from Sumerian of Dara-Mah ‘The Great Stag’. Much information comes from Dr Bobula Ida’s 1953 comparative myth essay on “The Great Stag, a Mesopotamian Divinity”. However much of this mythic idea can include all horned animals!