[Old English stagga]
The fully grown male deer was an important cult animal among the Continental Celts and plays an important role in Celtic vernacular tradition, even though the Goidelic languages lack a single word to denote it. The horned gods of the ancient Celts, notably Cernunnos, have stag antlers. As monarch of the northern forests, the stag was admired for its speed and sexual aggression during the rutting season. Its antlers symbolized the changing seasons by being shed in autumn and regrowing in spring. The hardness of the antler clearly evoked male genitalia, and carved antlers were used to make phallic amulets. Representations of stags are found in Celtic art, beginning with rock carvings (7th cent. BC) and continuing with bronze figures and coins from the pre-Roman and Romano-Celtic periods. In the Camonica valley in the Italian Alps the stag is linked with sun imagery. The Celtic Dis Pater described by Caesar (1st cent. BC) may be a stag-god. The British god Cocidius is accompanied by a stag.
In Welsh and Irish traditions the stag often entices humans into the Otherworld. Fionn mac Cumhaill often hunts an enchanted stag, the metamorphosed Irish god Donn. Christianized, the stag becomes a guide to heaven and so is represented in cemeteries, such as at Mount Stewart Gardens in Co. Down, Ireland. But stags may also be associated with women. Flidais, Irish goddess of wild things, is mistress of stags. The war-goddess Mórrígan can take the form of a stag. The stag is one of the three transformations of Tuan mac Cairill. In the first branch of the Mabinogi, Pwyll hunts a stag that is the quarry of Arawn, lord of Annwfn. In the fourth branch Gilfaethwy becomes a stag and Gwydion a hind to produce Hyddwn [Welsh, little stag]. In Culhwch ac Olwen, the supernatural, speaking Stag of Rhedynfre (or Redynvre) helps Culhwch in the pursuit of the boar Twrch Trwyth.
OIr. dam [also denotes ox]; Modern Irish poc [‘buck’, also denotes the ram], fia fireann [male deer]; Scottish Gaelic damh cabrach féidh; Manx tarroo-feeaih [lit. bull-deer]; Welsh carw, hydd; Cornish carow; Breton karv.
