On the hunt for the legendary white hart
LAST week whilst sat on the side of a septic tank at Woodhead I had an idea for a series of articles; three features in total referencing things that I see while out and about that make me smile, make me laugh and perhaps even make me cry.
My first example is a toss-up between the first and last category: you see, there is a fantastic pub called the White Hart, at Lydgate, near Mossley and, no offence, but the roe buck skull pictured in all the classy signage is not a ‘white hart.’
White harts are usually depicted as fallow deer bucks with palmated antlers, so named, as they appear like open palms, or openhanded.
Although having said that, a smidge of research of the hundreds of pubs in the land of this name sees a mix of white-red-deer stags and indeed white-fallow bucks and as the fallow were shipped in by the Romans, this is a two millennia conundrum, almost impossible to solve in seven hundred words, but I’ll have a go.
The white colour by the way is no mystery; the animals are not albino but rather leucistic, a partial loss of pigmentation resulting in white, pale or patchy coloration of the skin, hair, fur or feathers, but not the eyes.
I have had three personal encounters with these mythical beasts, witnessing a fallow-white-hart in the Forest of Dean, a whitered-deer in Glen Coe and a white- roe-buck above Loch Ness. I know, it is confusing. For clarity I declare a preference for the outcome, as I want the white hart to be a fallow deer, but on checking out the signage of my favourite pub in Edinburgh of that name... argh, it is a red deer.
Across all search engines, it is 50-50, but still no sign of a roe and as for the red and fallow, it could be that the artists were confused and did not know the difference.
This helps my cause, I think.
At least half of the ‘fallow-white-harts’ are wearing crowns and heraldic chains, which leads me nicely to a white hart that was captured, presented to King Richard and kept at Windsor in 1393. Most impressive of all in connecting Richard II with white deer is the use of the white hart motif in the famous painting known as The Wilton Diptych for all to see in the national Gallery in London.
Painted around 1400, it is recognised as a painting about divine kingship with the symbolism of the white hart motif central.
Since King Richard was the first to require drinking houses to display inn signs, also in 1393, many became White Hart inns and to this day their inn signs normally portray a white stag wearing a collar and chain.
In Mallory’s epic, Morte D’Arthur as the King Arthur dies, Sir Galahad sets off in search of a fitting burial ground...‘And therewith the soul departed from the body, and Galahad made him to be buried as him ought to be. Right so departed the three knights, and Percivale’s sister with them. And so they came into a waste forest, and there they saw afore them a white hart which four lions led.’
According to the Scots legend, in 1128, David 1, King of Scotland, decided to go hunting on the Feast Day against the wishes of his priest.
While hunting he saw a white-hart and while giving chase he was thrown from his horse. The white hart charged forward to kill him, so David – son of Malcolm Canmore and St. Margaret – called on God to save him.
As the king grasped the hart’s antlers, they miraculously turned into a large cross, and the beast raised its head and vanished. Inspired by his vision, King David built a shrine to the Holy Rood – meaning Holy Cross – on the spot where the miracle occurred. Holyrood Palace is now the Queen’s spare pad in Scotland.
To Christians, a white-hart came to symbolize Christ, inspired by the St Eustace legend, which was very similar to David of Scotland.
He came upon a white hart with a cross between his antlers.
Eustace converts on the spot and is put through numerous tragedies, persecutions, etc., including the death of his family, until being miraculously reunited with them.