KVASIR SYMBOL DATABASE
Antlers & Stag
Entry by Joseph Hopkins with art by Rim Baudey for Kvasir Symbol Database at Mimisbrunnr.info, April 2020. Modified April 2024.
Description
Antlers are a variety of horn that grow from the skull of certain mammals, such as deer and moose. The present article exclusively discusses deer native to Europe, such as the red deer (Cervus elaphus) and its regional subspecies, such as the Norwegian red deer (Cervus elaphus atlanticus).
DATING
Antlers and stags appear by all indications to have been known to the ancient Germanic peoples throughout their history.
SOURCES
Beowulf & GERMANIA
Many of the events of the Old English poem Beowulf rotate around a hall. Heorot, the name of this hall, is the precursor to modern English hart, a somewhat obscure word today meaning ‘stag’. Seated in his hart-hall, the poem refers to the chief Hroðgar as lord of the Ingwine (Old English ‘Ing’s Friends’; l. 1044, 1319).
The theonym (god name) Ing is of great vintage. The name first enters the historic record in Roman senator Tacitus’s Germania (1 CE) in the Latinized Proto-Germanic form Ingvaeones. According to Germania, the Ingvaeones are a group of Germanic peoples in what is now Denmark and northern Germany that included the Angli—the pre-migration peoples who would become the English—who together worship the goddess Nerthus (Latinized from Proto-Germanic *Nerþuz). (On the theonym and related topics, see discussion in Simek 2007 [1993]: 378-379)
SUTTON HOO
The Sutton Hoo excavation site contains an Anglo-Saxon ship burial. Archaeologists began excavating the site in 1939, and the objects they have discovered there so far have made a major impact on English history and ancient Germanic studies.
One object found in mound I is particularly notable for the purpose of this entry: A staff-like object made from whetstone and ornamented with four bearded and triangular faces, a large iron ring, and, dramatically, topped with a bronze stag with exaggerated, splayed antlers (the British Museum seems to have two entries for the find in its digital collections: see this entry and this entry).
As the British Museum implies, this object is generally interpreted as having been a scepter, or at least modeled after one, as its construction finds ancient precedent in a variety of contexts. Combined with its placement in such a high-status grave, the object was clearly intended for wielding by an individual of high prestige, likely a king.
OLD NORSE RECORD
Over a thousand years after Germania, the name Ing again surfaces in the written record in its Old Norse cognate form Yngvi, a name for the god Freyr (Old Norse ‘lord’). In the legendary saga Ynglinga saga (based on the poem Ynglingatal), which discusses the history of the Ynglings (‘descendants of Ing’), Freyr is referred to as Yngvi-Freyr (‘Lord of the Ing-friends’, evidently stemming from Proto-Germanic *Ingwia-fraujaz—see discussion in Simek 2007 [1993]: 378-379). Further, the Old Norse record repeatedly mentions that Freyr, along with his sister Freyja (Old Norse ‘lady’), is the son of the god Njǫrðr, linguistic descendent of Proto-Germanic *Nerþuz, who readers will recall is mentioned in Germania as venerated by the Ingvaeones (and an unknown sister, see discussion in Hopkins 2012: 39-44).
The only deity in the Old Norse corpus directly connected with the stag is Freyr. After giving away his self-fighting sword for the love of the beautiful jǫtunn Gerðr, Freyr thereafter fights with a weapon unexpected by modern readers; a stag’s antler. According to Gylfaginning:
This is the reason for Freyr so being unarmed when he fought Beli, killing him with a stag’s antler. (Faulkes 1995 [1987]: 32: 1995)
We find no further discussion of this narrative in the corpus, and as Lindow puts it, “this appears to be one of those lost myths that can be glimpsed only in passing” (Lindow 2001: 73).
The royal hall of Heorot also sees something of a mirror image in the Old Norse record in Valhalla (Old Norse Valhǫll), an afterlife location in Norse mythology ruled over by the god Odin (Old Norse Óðinn). This hall is also associated with a stag named Eikþyrnir, which is in turn associated with the central sacred tree, around which all things exist in Norse myth. The name Eikþyrnir appears to be a compound meaning ‘oak-thorn’, a fitting reference to antlers. The deer’s antlers have something of a cosmic function: According to Gylfaginning, the stag chews the leaves of the central sacred tree, and water drips from the antlers to form into numerous rivers throughout the worlds (Faulkes 1995 [1987]: 33).
Eikþyrnir is not the only stag associated with the sacred tree in the Old Norse record. The eddic poem Grímnismál and Gyflaginning mention four stags who dwell and feed within the boughs of the tree. These creatures are among many others that live among the immense roots and branches of the tree. Given the context of stags elsewhere in the ancient Germanic record, it’s tempting to consider these four stags together in the highest boughs as the tree’s own crown of antlers.
Analysis
If one has the pleasure to visit the forests of Jægersborg Dyrehave north of Copenhagen, Denmark in the autumn, one will encounter many thousands of deer. As the sun emerges from the horizon at dawn, the guttural bellow of the rutting stag can be heard throughout the immense oaks of the Baltic coast woods there. The mature red deer stag is an impressive sight: Tall and muscular, its head framed by a crown of sword-like antlers, each a ferocious king among his respective harem; the classic image of the hart among the hinds. Such encounters make an impact on those who witness them, and an analogy with the crowned king is a natural one, inspiring famous works such as 19th century English painter Edwin Landseer’s iconic The Monarch of the Glen. Perhaps the association between stag, the deity Ing, and the notion of the ruler stems from such encounters.
While no doubt the concept and function of kingship among the early Germanic peoples was quite different than what we might think of today (a topic ultimately beyond the scope of this entry), it appears that antlers and stags maintained an association with a royalty-associated god, Ing, among at least a segment of the ancient Germanic peoples, and with him the royal hall. More broadly, antlered or horned deities appear elsewhere in Europe, including the Celtic deity Cernunnos (raising questions, for example, about how ancient Germanic peoples may have interpreted the horned figure on the Gundestrup Cauldron) and horned depictions of the ancient Greek deity Dionysus (for example), who may be argued to be rather Freyr-like in some ways (cf. North 1997: 37-38).
More further afield but ultimately related, certain peoples of the Eurasian steppes, such as the Scythians and Sarmatians, placed intense iconographic focus on the stag and its antlers. Numerous objects from the region depict stags and stag-like creatures—sometimes monstrous—with enormous, tree-like antlers splaying outward toward the heavens (for an excellent overview, see Aruz, Farkas, Alekseev, Andrei, & Korolkova 2000).
ABOUT THE IMAGES
This entry contains three original pieces by Rim Bitik for Mimisbrunnr.info, all produced by the artist in 2020. They are as follows:
I.: Three antlers arranged in a circle.
II.: Bellowing red deer stag.
III.: A red deer skull with conifers and needles among a bed of moss, symbolizing the union of the deities Freyr and Gerðr. In the poem Skírnismál, the two deities have sex in a sacred grove called Barri, generally understood to refer to conifers.
Readers can find wallpaper-quality versions by clicking the images. Please contact Mimisbrunnr.info for image use requests.
References
Aruz, Joan; Farkas, Ann; Alekseev, Andrei; and Korolkova, Elena. (Ed.) 2000. The Golden Deer of Eurasia. Yale University Press.
Faulkes, Anthony. 1995 [1987]. Edda. Everyman.
Hopkins, Joseph S. 2012. “Goddesses Unknown I: Njǫrun and the Sister-Wife of Njǫrðr” in RMN Newsletter 5, pp. 39-44. University of Helsinki. Online.
Lindow, John. 2001. Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs. Oxford University Press.
North, Richard. 1997. Heathen Gods in Old English Literature. Cambridge University Press.
Simek, Rudolf. 2007 [1993]. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. Boydell & Brewer Ltd.