Thank you for this guide through symbolic groves - your work in this piece and the preceding reminds me of two point. One is the lai of Guingamor who must hunt a white boar who leads him into Faerie, as white beasts are wont to do. The other is a tale I heard out of the backwoods of Pennsylvania some forty years back or more. Rumor spread in the country town that a white buck had been spotted in woods, and every young hunter swore he would be the one to bring it home - something about it did not put off these men but rather drew them implacably to destroy it. I do not know in anyone did succeed in this fell deed or what became of him if so - but there you go, within living memory, hunting culture proves to still be fascinated by the white deer.
Angelisa, in the lit review in The White Deer I summarize the part of the Lai of Guigemar where the "Knight of Little Brittany" shoots a hermaphroditic horned doe with an arrow that rebounds upon his thigh. He is cursed to suffer for love, but eventually prevails.
The attraction hunters feel to a rare animal is hypnotizing. While taboos urge some restraint, there are always those who think they are above "good and evil" and want to bring home a special trophy. This is what is driving the poaching of protected species that conservationists are trying to rehabilitate in Europe today, such as wolves, lynx, and bears. We could say "people today are stupid/have no respect for nature," but the fact is, humans have been driving extinction of the largest and most charismatic life forms wherever they have migrated.
Thank you for this guide through symbolic groves - your work in this piece and the preceding reminds me of two point. One is the lai of Guingamor who must hunt a white boar who leads him into Faerie, as white beasts are wont to do. The other is a tale I heard out of the backwoods of Pennsylvania some forty years back or more. Rumor spread in the country town that a white buck had been spotted in woods, and every young hunter swore he would be the one to bring it home - something about it did not put off these men but rather drew them implacably to destroy it. I do not know in anyone did succeed in this fell deed or what became of him if so - but there you go, within living memory, hunting culture proves to still be fascinated by the white deer.
Angelisa, in the lit review in The White Deer I summarize the part of the Lai of Guigemar where the "Knight of Little Brittany" shoots a hermaphroditic horned doe with an arrow that rebounds upon his thigh. He is cursed to suffer for love, but eventually prevails.
The attraction hunters feel to a rare animal is hypnotizing. While taboos urge some restraint, there are always those who think they are above "good and evil" and want to bring home a special trophy. This is what is driving the poaching of protected species that conservationists are trying to rehabilitate in Europe today, such as wolves, lynx, and bears. We could say "people today are stupid/have no respect for nature," but the fact is, humans have been driving extinction of the largest and most charismatic life forms wherever they have migrated.