[HPforGrownups] Digest Number 947

[Barbara Purdom]

No: HPFGUIDX 20284

--- Nethilia De Lobo <nethilia at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Devika:
> BTW, I've been trying to figure out the
> significance of the stag in mythology, but I haven't
> had much luck.  Could someone point me in the 
> right direction or tell me what they came up with?  
> I read someone's post about the stag being an enemy 
> of the serpent, but I would like to be able to find 
> something more detailed.
> 
> I remember a myth: the White Stag of Greek
> Mythology. The fourth of Hercules's (or Heracles, if

> I must use the Greek name) twelve tasks was to catch

> the White stag. It was a sacred beast to the Godess 
> Artemis goddess of the moon, hunting, childbirth,
> virginity, and unmarried young women [snip]

Another stag myth that concerns Artemis [this one with
transfiguration] is the story of Actaeon, a hunter who
came upon the goddess bathing; offended at being seen
naked by a man, she turned him into a stag and he was
chased and killed by his own hounds. This story is
coincidentally told/sung by the lady-in-waiting
Belinda to Queen Dido of Carthage in Purcell's chamber
opera "Dido and Aeneas," which features a band of
witches who curse the title lovers and cause the
queen's death.
 
Stags and harts are often treated interchangeably in
English folk traditions, and plays on the words "hart"
and "heart" were very popular in madrigals and even
used in the King James translation of the Bible (Psalm
42).  The stag/hart was a symbol of purity because it
supposedly retired to mountain tops to be alone.
(Hence the etymology of "stag" being used to mean
"dateless.")



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