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November 3 |Feast day of St Hubert of Liège (Belgium)

(Born c. 656; died at Fura (the modern Tervueren), Brabant, May 30, 727 or 728.)

St Hubert of Liège (pictured at left), who is believed to have been the son of Bertrand, Duke of Guienne in Belgium, is the patron saint of hunters, metal-workers and mathematicians.

He spent so much of his time and energies hunting, thereby neglecting his religious duties, that one day in the woods, a stag bearing a crucifix threatened him with eternal damnation if he did not mend his ways.

On a Good Friday morning, when the religious were crowding the churches, Hubert instead went out hunting. As he pursued a magnificent stag, the animal turned and, according to the legend, he was astounded to see a crucifix between its antlers. Hubert heard a voice saying: “Hubert, unless thou turnest to the Lord, and leadest an holy life, thou shalt quickly go down into hell”. Hubert dismounted, prostrated himself and said, “Lord, what wouldst Thou have me do?” He received the answer, “Go and seek Lambert, and he will instruct you".

St Lambert, Bishop of Maastricht, received Hubert kindly, and became his spiritual director. So moved was Hubert by his experience, that he entered the monkhood, and eventually became Bishop of Liege, and the apostle of Ardennes and Brabant.

St Hubert was widely venerated in the Middle Ages, and many military orders were named after him. Descendants of Hubert are said to possess the power of curing anyone bitten by a mad dog. Moreover, the only weapon that can harm a werewolf is one that has been blessed in a chapel dedicated to St Hubert. Or, so it is said. He predicted the date of his own death.

In art he is represented in the attire of a bishop, with a miniature stag resting on the book in his hand, or as a huntsman kneeling before the crucifix carried by the stag.

In the town of St Hubert, Belgium, celebrations are held today. St Hubert and the stag are shown on the coat of arms of St Hubert, a town in Luxembourg. The saint was already used on the oldest known seal of the council, dating from May 26, 1578.

Hubert is patron of archers, dog bite, dogs, forest workers, furriers, hunters, hunting, huntsmen, hydrophobia, Liege Belgium, machinists, mad dogs, mathematicians, metal workers, precision instrument makers, rabies, smelters, trappers

Gallery of images of Saint Hubert

July 4 | St Martin Bullion and the stag

Once, while St Martin Bullion was at prayer in his cell, the devil came in without knocking, holding in his hand a horn covered with blood. “I've just killed one of your people,” Satan told the saint – indeed, the monastery's carrier had just been gored by a bull. 

At this, Martin resolved to fight the surrounding devils by destroying all the pagan temples in the district. He was soon seeing devils everywhere, and this enabled him to keep out of the way of his own devil. This is probably a piece of folklore that derives from the suppression in Europe of the pagan cult of Cernunnos.

St Eustace meets the Stag of Christ, by Pisanello

September 20 | Feast day of St Eustace (Eustachius; Eustathius) and Companions, martyrs
(Common meadow saffron, Colchicum autumnale, is today’s plant, dedicated to this saint)

Hubert of Liège (feast day November 3), is a Christian saint who came upon a stag (sometimes described as a white stag) with a crucifix between its antlers. The stag threatened him with eternal damnation if he did not mend his ways, and so moved was Hubert by his experience, that he entered the monkhood, and eventually became Bishop of Liège, and the apostle of Ardennes and Brabant. Hubert is one of a number of Christian saints associated with deers and other horned animals, of whom we provide an overview in the Christian saints and the Horned God page in the Scriptorium.

St Eustace, who changed his name from Placidus after his conversion, is another saint who experienced conversion by seeing just the same unusual type of creature while hunting. Consequently, both men are patron saints of hunters; in fact, there is so little evidence that Eustace even existed that there is conjecture that Eustace’s tale, as popularized in Jacobus de Voragine’s 13^th-century Golden Legend, is a retelling of Hubert's. This feast day in the Roman Catholic Church has not been officially observed since Pope Paul VI removed many of the less well documented saints from the canon in 1969.

Placidus, a Christian martyr, was a wealthy 2^nd-century Roman general in the service of the emperor Trajan. Although Placidus practiced idol worship, he also showed great generosity  to the poor. The figure on the crucifix of Placidus’s stag bore the inscription, “I am Christ whom you serve without knowing it. Because of your generosity to the poor, I am hunting you”. Some versions of the legend say that the stag itself called out to him, “Placidus, Placidus, why persecutest thou me? I am Jesus Christ.”

Placidus returned home and was baptized along with his wife, Tatiana (who had received a similar miraculous visit) and their two sons. On the following day, Eustace, as he was now calling himself (meaning ‘good fortune’ or ‘fruitful’), came upon the stag again and was told, “Your faith must be tested. Satan will fight furiously to regain your soul. You will be like a new Job. But, when you have proven yourself, I will restore everything to you. Do you want the test now or at the end of your life?”

Martyrdom

Eustace chose to be tested at once. Within a few days, his servants and horses died of a plague and his house was robbed and his wealth stolen. Eustace and his newly converted family fled to Egypt, but, on the way, his wife was kidnapped by sailors, and his two sons were devoured by a wolf and a lion. The promised divine testing was certainly upon him. For 15 years he lived in isolation and poverty, until he was found by Roman soldiers who restored him to his former rank. He won a great battle for the Emperor Hadrian and found his wife and sons alive and unharmed. “Surely all my tribulation is at an end!”, Eustace is said to have cried.

However, it was not to be. Upon his return to Rome in the year 188, a victory celebration was held in his honour, but Eustace and his family refused to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving to pagan idols, so they were cooked to death in a bronze bull. Or, so it is said.

And then the emperor, replenished with ire, put him his wife and his sons in a certain place, and did to go to them a right cruel lion, and the lion ran to them and inclined his head to them, like as he had worshipped them, and departed. Then the emperor did do make a fire under an ox of brass or copper, and when it was fire-hot he commanded that they should be put therein all quick and alive. And then the saints prayed and commended them unto our Lord, and entered into the ox, and there yielded up their spirits unto Jesu Christ. And the third day after, they were drawn out tofore the emperor, and were found all whole and not touched of the fire, ne as much as an hair of them was burnt, ne none other thing on them. And then the christian men took the bodies of them, and laid them in a right noble place honourably, and made over them an oratory. And they suffered death under Adrian the emperor, which began about the year one hundred and twenty in the calends of November.
The story of St Eustace from The Golden Legend or Lives of the Saints. Compiled by Jacobus de Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa, 1275. First edition published 1470. Englished by William Caxton, first edition 1483.

The image of Eustace kneeling before the stag became a popular subject of medieval religious art. He may also be seen represented with another horned animal, the bull; or with a crucifix and/or an oven.

Patronage

Eustace’s patronage includes against fire, difficult situations, fire prevention, firefighters, hunters, hunting, huntsmen, Madrid, torture victims and trappers. His feast day is November 2 in the Orthodox calendar of the Eastern (Orthodox) Church.

Island named for Eustace

Sint Eustatius, one of the islands making up the Netherlands Antilles, is named for this saint. The citizens of Sint Eustatius take pride in being the first ‘nation’ to recognize the United States, having fired an official salute to the visiting American ship Andrew Doria in 1776.

More on St Eustace

The stag in myth and legend

The white stag is known in myths and legends from many places and in Europe probably harks back to early cultures that relied on hunting. The Celtic god Cernunnos (Herne, ‘the horned one’) bears the antlers of a deer. In Celtic myth, the white stag represents the presence of divine powers.

The 12^th-century Anglo-French tale of Guigemar, by Marie de France, tells of a knight who comes upon a white doe with the antlers of a stag. He wounds the strange animal, which curses him to grow up and fall in love. In Hungarian mythology, a great white stag led the brothers Hunor and Magar to settle in Scythia. Thus were established the Huns and Magyars.

In Christianity, the white stag came to symbolize Jesus Christ, as does its cognate, the unicorn. In Christian iconography, the stag often appears with the sun between its horns. The white hart was the heraldic symbol of England’s King Richard II. In Hindu mythology, Maricha assumes the form of a golden deer in order to attract Sitadevi;  Lord Shiva was wrapped in deer skin; and the chariot Vayus is pulled by a pair of deer. Santa Claus, who evokes the memory of the northern gods Odin and Thor, is transported in a sleigh drawn by reindeer. In ancient Greece, the Elaphoi Khrysokeroi were five golden-horned deer sacred to the goddess Artemis. Of these, the first four drew the goddess’s chariot.

Stags in sacred texts 

Indian horned god

It is interesting to note that the image of Cernunnos on the Gundestrup Cauldron, which is one of the primary sources for a representation of the god, shows him seated in what might be referred to as an Indian 'lotus' (padmasana) or yogic position (see below). Neil MacGregor Campbell has pointed out in an article, The Horned God in India and Europe, that

Deep in India's ancient past we find a God which could be the Horned God in his original form, preceding Cernunnos, Hu Gadern, Pan and Herne, that of the Horned God of the Indus Valley, Pashupati ...

Mythological reference to the Horned God Pashupati can be found in ancient Indian and Nepalese scriptural texts. The legend of Pashupati can be found in reference to the Indian God Shiva, of whom Pashupati is referred to as being the proto-type. In the Skanda Purana it tells how the God Shiva used to love a great forest called the 'Sleshmantaka Forest' . It was here that Shiva spent so much time being emersed in 'the wilderness of this forest in merry-making assuming Himself the form of a deer'. 

Juxtaposed images of Cernunnos and Pushupati on that web page reveal striking similarities of form.

*Hubert of Liege: born about 656; died at Fura (the modern Tervueren), Brabant, 30 May, 727 or 728.

Folklore of goat/Pan/Phaunos/Faunus horned god at August 10 in the Book of Days

 

 

Abbots Bromley Horn (Antler Dance; Ceremony of the Deermen), Abbots Bromley, UK

Wakes Monday, the first Monday after September 4

Originally this was danced during the Yuletide on Twelfth Day (January 6) at Abbots Bromley, Staffordshire, England. Now the Abbots Bromley Horn is danced on the first Monday after September 4, the date having been moved in the 18^th Century. Six male dancers hold white and brown-painted (formerly red and white) genuine reindeer antlers on wooden poles.

The antlers were obtained from reindeer that were castrated, or domesticated during the eleventh century. As reindeer are believed to have become extinct in the British Isles by then, and we know of no domesticated herds, the antlers were possibly of Scandinavian origin. In 1976, a small splinter was radiocarbon dated to around 1065. (At Star Carr in Yorkshire, Mesolithic antler ‘frontlets’, apparently meant to be worn, have been dated to 7600 BCE.) Since 1981, the Abbots Bromley horns have been legally the property of Abbots Bromley Parish Council and for 364 days of the year, they are on display in St Nicholas Church.

The dance starts at 7 am with a service of Holy Communion in St Nicholas Church, where the horns are housed. The dance begins on the village green, then passes out of the village to Blithfield Hall, currently owned by Lady Bagot.

The dancers hold the antlers to their heads as they dance. They go round neighbouring farms before the event (a distance of about 16 kilometres, or ten miles), which is possibly left over from a more ancient fertility dance. At the end of the day, the antlers are returned to the church. The Horn Dancers comprise six ‘Deer-men’, a Fool, Hobby Horse, Bowman (Robin Hood) and Maid Marion, performing their dance to a traditional tune provided by a melodion player.

The sight of a bowman following men wearing antlers is reminiscent of scenes in the celebrated cave paintings of Lascaux, France, which date to Paleolithic times 20,000 years ago, which depict men wearing antler head-dresses being stalked by archers (pictured at left). The Kalahari Bushmen’s ritual mimicry of hunters stalking antelopes also comes to mind, as does the Apache horn dance ...

Read on at September 6 in the Book of Days

September 16 | Fête of Cornely (St Cornelius, 21st Pope),  at Carnac, Brittany, France

Cornelius was pope elected on either March 6 or March 13, 251 during the lull in the persecution of the emperor Trajan Decius. His election was opposed by Novatian, who maintained the view that not even the bishops could grant remission for grave sins like murder, adultery, and apostasy, but that these could only be remitted at the Last Judgement; Cornelius on the contrary believed that bishops could grant remission for these grave sins. With the help of St Cyprian, his party prevailed and he was elected Pope. Novatian fled Rome, but his followers organized into a sect considered heretical by the rest of Christianity.

After ruling for two years, under the emperor Trebonianus Gallus, he was exiled to Centuricellae (Civita Vecchia), where he died in June 253. After 30 years his body was returned to Rome and buried in the cemetery of Saint Callistus.

Cornely is patron saint of horned animals, no doubt because of the similarity of the saint’s name with the Latin word for ‘horn’, but also a remnant of pre-Christian worship of the horned god, who to the Celts was the similarly named Cernunnos (the Stag Lord) ... 

Read on at his feast day, September 16 in the Book of Days

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September 29 | Feast of Gwynn ap Nudd

Leading a pack of phantom hunters in chase after a sacred white stag is Gwynn ap Nudd, the Welsh Celtic god of the underworld and the faerie kingdom. Today is the feast day of the god, who dwells on Glastonbury Tor, the sacred mountain also known as the resting place of King Arthur. He is like the British legendary character, Herne the Hunter.

Note that in old England, September 29, Michaelmas, marked when roe hunting season began (ended on Candlemas, February 2).

The Song of Amergin
I am a stag of seven tines,
I am a wide flood on a plain,
I am a wind on the deep waters,
I am a shining tear of the sun,
I am a hawk on a cliff,
I am fair among flowers,
I am a god who sets the head afire with smoke.
I am a battle waging spear,
I am a salmon in the pool,
I am a hill of poetry,
I am a ruthless boar,
I am a threatening noise of the sea,
I am a wave of the sea,
Who but I knows the secrets of the unhewn dolmen?
Origin obscure but certainly Celtic

 

 

The cuckolding man has been depicted as having two horns on his head. See Cuckoo Day – April 14 at the Book of Days

 

 

 

May 21 | Feast day of St Godric of Finchale

"In the time of Rainulf, Bishop of Durham, certain of his household had come out for a day's hunting, with their hounds, and were following a stag which they had singled out for its beauty. The creature, hard pressed by the clamor and the baying, made for Godric's hermitage, and seemed by its plaintive cries to beseech his help.

"The old man [Godric] came out, saw the stag shivering and exhausted at his gate, and moved with pity bade it hush its moans, and opening the door of his hut, let it go in. The creature dropped at the good father's feet but he, feeling that the hunt was coming near, came out, shut the door behind him and sat down in the open; while the dogs, vexed at the loss of their quarry, turned back with a mighty baying upon their masters.

"They, nonetheless, following on the track of the stag, circled round about the place, plunging through the well-nigh impenetrable brushwood of thorns and briars; and hacking a path with their blades, came upon the man of God in his poor rags.

"They questioned him about the stag; but he would not be the betrayer of his guest, and he made prudent answer, 'God knows where he may be.' They looked at the angelic beauty of his countenance, and in reverence for his holiness, they fell before him and asked his pardon for their bold intrusion.

"Many a time afterwards they would tell what had befallen them there, and marvel at it, and by their oft telling of it, the thing was kept in memory by those that came after. But the stag kept house with Godric until the evening; and then he let it go free. But for years thereafter it would turn from its way to visit him, and lie at his feet, to show what gratitude it could for its deliverance" (Reginald).   Source

October 18 | Horn Fair, Charlton, near London  

I remember being there upon Horn Fair Day, I was dressed in my landlady's best gown and other women's attire, and to Horn Fair we went, and as we were coming back by water, all the cloaths were spoiled by dirty water, &c., that was flung on us in an inundation, for which I was obliged to present her with two guineas to make atonement for the damage sustained, &c.
Fuller's Whole Life, 1703

It consists of a riotous mob, who, after a printed summons dispersed through the adjacent towns, meet at Cuckold's Point, near Deptford, and march from thence in procession through that town and Greenwich to Charlton, with horns of different kinds on their heads; and at the fair there are sold ram's horns, and every sort of toy made of horn; even the gingerbread figures have horns.
Capt. Grose et al, Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1811

The Horn Fair was held for three days annually from St Luke's Day and was named after the custom of carrying horns and wearing them. A foreign traveller in 1598 wrote that there was at Ratcliffe, nearby, a long pole with ram's horns upon it, representing “wilful and contented cuckolds”.  The horned man, or Green Man, was a representation of the ancient horned god Herne (who derived from the Celtic Horned God Cernunnos), and it is interesting to note that the fair, now held at Hornfair Park, was formerly held at Cuckold’s Point, East London.

At the fair there was a procession, which went three times around the church, of people wearing horns. There were many wild practices, such as whipping females with sprigs of furze, giving rise to the expression “all is fair at Horn Fair”. Men would often wear women's clothes.

Toys made of horns were sold; even the gingerbread on sale had horns. All kinds of goods made of horns were sold at the Horn Fair. There used to be a sermon preached on the day at Charlton Church, but it had been discontinued by Victorian times. "The practice was created by a bequest of twenty shillings a year to the minister of the parish for preaching it." (Hone, William, The Every-Day Book, or a Guide to the Year, Vol., 1, William Tegg and Co., London, 1878)

The Christian symbol for St Luke is an ox, or the saint writing with an ox or cow beside him, so it is likely the ancient Herne/Horned God cult was transmuted into a cult of the physician Apostle. St Luke's Church at Charlton had stained glass windows, though largely destroyed in time of the troubles in the reign (1625 - 1649) of Charles I, showing St Luke's ox with wings on its back and horns on its head.

 

The Legend of Herne
There is an old tale goes that Herne the Hunter,
Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,
Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight,
Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns;
And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle,
And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain
In a most hideous and dreadful manner.

You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know
The superstitious idle-headed eld
Receiv'd, and did deliver to our age,
This tale of Herne the Hunter for a truth.
William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, 1.iv

"Herne was the favourite huntsman of Richard the Second. Mortally wounded while saving his master from a stag at bay, he was miraculously cured by a stranger, who tied the antlers of a dead stag to the dying man's brow. He claimed in payment all Herne's skill in venery. Crazed by the loss of that skill in the craft he loved, Herne fled to the forest, where a pedlar found his horned corpse hanging from an oak. But every night he returned at the head of a spectral hunt to harry the Windsor game as of old."   Source

 

“It is widely thought that Carnival first came to London when the Notting Hill Carnival was started back in the 1960's. However, there is evidence that Carnival in London has much older roots going back to the days when the Celtic population of London and the surrounding areas in pre-Saxon London (circa. 5th century AD), worshipped the Horned God or Green Man - the Pagan fertility God …”   Source

Merlin appears as a stag

 

 

The Mask of Herne

“In 1487 the last Keeper of Windsor Great Park (and therefore a successor of Herne himself), one William Evingdon donated a building to the parish of Windsor, "for the good of his soul". This property was opposite the parish church on Windsor High Street, and it became the vicarage. About 450 years later in the early 1930s the vicarage was moved to Park Street, and during the move workmen dug up a strange object.

“It was a carved stone head of something not quite human. It had the face of a man, including a moustache, but the ears and antlers of a stag. The eyes were deep set and fierce.

“There were many theories as to its origin. It may have been part of a gargoyle or some other grotesque church ornament, and indeed it has been described as looking something like the carved stone Green Man faces which decorate many churches. Some suggested that it had last belonged to William Evingdon, and that it was passed on from Keeper to Keeper as some kind of tradition, or symbol of office. It became known as The Mask of Herne …

“One day in 1856 two young boys, William Fenwick and William Butterworth, were offered a lift by a stranger driving a horse and carriage. He took the two Williams to Albany Road, near Park Street, where they became drowsy and passed out for no apparent reason. They woke up several hours later in The Home Park itself by Victoria Bridge, and could not remember how they got there. The police became involved but nothing ever came of the investigation, and it was put down to an eccentric kidnapping or childish imagination. (Does this remind you at all of UFO abductions ?)

Legend of Herne, from Windsor, Berkshire, UK
"Herne was the favourite huntsman of Richard the Second. Mortally wounded while saving his master from a stag at bay, he was miraculously cured by a stranger, who tied the antlers of a dead stag to the dying man's brow. He claimed in payment all Herne's skill in venery. Crazed by the loss of that skill in the craft he loved, Herne fled to the forest, where a pedlar found his horned corpse hanging from an oak. But every night he returned at the head of a spectral hunt to harry the Windsor game as of old.”   Source

 

 

The Highgate, UK, swearing on the horns

"HIGHGATE. Sworn at Highgate.--A ridiculous custom formerly prevailed at the public houses in Highgate, to administer a ludicrous oath to all travellers of the middling rank who stopped there. The party was sworn on a pair of horns, fastened on a stick; the substance of the oath was, never to kiss the maid when he could kiss the mistress, never to drink small beer when he could get strong; with many other injunctions of the like kind, to all which was added the saving clause, 'Unless you like it best.' The person administering the oath was always to be called Father by the juror, and he in return was to style him Son, under the penalty of a bottle."
Knowlson, T Sharper, The Origins of Popular Superstitions and Customs, T Werner Laurie, Ltd, London, 1930

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The unicorn, Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary

The unicorn, the much-loved legendary creature of Western bestiaries, is shaped like a horse with a lion's tail but with a single – usually spiral – horn growing out of its forehead. 

To ancient European scholars, the unicorn, or monokeratos, was one of the Theres Indikoi, or fabulous beasts of India. The Greek physician and historian, Ctesias gave the West its earliest description of India's unicorn, or karkadam, in Indica, written in about 400 BCE:

In India there are wild asses [the Monokerata or Unicorns] as large as horses, or even larger. Their body is white, their head dark red, their eyes bluish, and they have a horn in their forehead about a cubit in length. The lower part of the horn, for about two palms distance from the forehead, is quite white, the middle is black, the upper part, which terminates in a point, is a very flaming red. Those who drink out of cups made from it are proof against convulsions, epilepsy, and even poison, provided that before or after having taken it they drink some wine or water or other liquid out of these cups. The domestic and wild asses of other countries and all other solid-hoofed animals have neither huckle-bones nor gall-bladder, whereas the Indian asses have both. Their huckle-bone is the most beautiful that I have seen, like that of the ox in size and appearance; it is as heavy as lead and of the colour of cinnabar all through. These animals are very strong and swift; neither the horse nor any other animal can overtake them. At first they run slowly, but the longer they run their pace increases wonderfully, and becomes faster and faster. There is only one way of catching them. When they take their young to feed, if they are surrounded by a large number of horsemen, being unwilling to abandon their foals, they show fight, butt with their horns, kick, bite, and kill many men and horses. They are at last taken, after they have been pierced with arrows and spears; for it is impossible to capture them alive. Their flesh is too bitter to eat, and they are only hunted for the sake of the horns and huckle-bones.
Ctesias, as summarised in Photius, Myriobiblon, 72

This description was based on the tales of travellers, and is probably a mixture of the rhinoceros, the Himalayan antelope, and the wild ass. The creature is also possibly based on the narwhal, a marine creature with one horn.

The modern unicorn descends from the medieval myth: he is male and retains the billygoat beard of his ancestry and cloven hoofs, which both distinguished him from a horse. In the West the unicorn was usually considered wild and untameable except in the special circumstance mentioned below.

In Japan it is called Kirin, and in China, where it is called Ki-lin, it had the body of a stag, hooves of a horse (or else clove hooves), and a single horn of about four metres. Unlike their Western corrollaries, Asian unicorns were the epitome of kindness and gentleness, eating no living thing and never stepping on even the tiniest insect or blade of grass.

Symbol of Jesus Christ

The unicorn was seen as a symbol for Jesus Christ because of the beast's purity, majestic bearing and the belief that by dipping its horn into liquid poisons they would be purified; a bit of horn sprinkled on suspect food would counteract the effects of any poisons therein, just as Jesus, it was believed, purifies the world and the individual sinner.  From the unicorn's horn, as Ctesias wrote, were made drinking cups that were a preventive of poisoning. because of this magickal ability, the unicorn was given by the other beasts the office of "water-conner", stirring the water with his horn before the others would drink.

Alleged aphrodisiac qualities and other purported medicinal virtues also drove up the cost of "unicorn" products such as milk, hide and offal. Unicorns were also said to be able to determine whether or not a woman was a virgin; in some tales, they could only be mounted by virgins.

The image (above, right) comes from an anti-papal satire, showing Christ as the unicorn knocking the triple crown from the head of the pope. The symbolical relevance would have been heightened by the very erotic medieval notion that a unicorn could only be subdued if a virgin was placed in its way. The maiden's sweet smell would entice the creature, which would then lay its head in her lap, only to be captured and sometimes, according to ancient images such as this one at left, attacked and hacked to pieces. There is an esoteric connection with Christ dying for the world, in this depiction of the innocent beast being slaughtered, alone but surrounded by extreme and cruel hostility:

The unicorn has but one horn in the middle of its forehead. It is the only animal that ventures to attack the elephant; and so sharp is the nail of its foot, that with one blew it can rip the belly of that beast. Hunters can catch the unicorn only by placing a young virgin in its haunts. No sooner does he see the damsel, than he runs towards her, and lies down at her feet, and so suffers himself to be captured by the hunters. The unicorn represents Jesus Christ, who took on Him our nature in the virgin's womb, was betrayed to the Jews, and delivered into the hands of Pontius Pilate. Its one horn signifies the Gospel of Truth.
Guillaume, Clerc de Normandie, Le Bestiaire Divin, 13th Century

There was a popular identification of the virgin with Virgin Mary, and how one might interpret the archetypal virginal seductress being used to capture the beast/Christ, may perhaps be conjectured by anyone as well as another. Or, so it seems to your almanackist. 

 

The Invisible Pink Unicorn

The Invisible Pink Unicorn, according to Wikipedia, is a satire aimed at certain religious attitudes and beliefs. The earliest known references to this parody were on the Usenet discussion group alt.atheism, as an alternative to other parody deities like Church of the SubGenius's JR 'Bob' Dobbs or Eris of Discordianism.

An Invisible Pink Unicorn site

 

St Denys, first Bishop of Paris (feast day October 9)

Denys lived for seven years in the form of a hart, or deer. Or, so it is said. (Richard Johnson: The Famous History of the Seven Champions of Christendom, 1596)

Index of articles on folklore and other topics

St Aidan encountered a vanishing stag

Saints, dragons and serpents in the Book of days

Deities of many cultures in the Book of Days

Who is the Green Man?

External links

Stags in sacred texts    Horned God at Wikipedia

Picture of St Eustace and the stag by Pisanello

More on the Horned God   Horned God in India & Europe

Green Man at Mything Links website   More on the Green Man

Evidence of worship of the Horned God in early Celtic London