cat
The animal that is thought of today as a beloved pet (and hardly as an exterminator of RATS and mice any more) has a predominantly negative reputation in symbolic tradition. It was domesticated in ancient Egypt around 2000 B.C. from the Nubian Felis sylvestris lybica.
A short-tailed cat, the so-called "reed cat," which was known there even earlier, is mentioned in The Book of the Dead as slicing up the evil SNAKE Apepi.
The domestic cat soon replaced leonine deities: the cat goddess Bast or Bastet was a lioness in earlier times, but cats themselves came to be frequently mummified, and feline deities appeared, represented with a cat's head and a woman's body.
In late antiquity cats were brought from Egypt to Greece and Rome and were viewed as attributes of the goddess DIANA.
BLACK cats in particular were believed to have magic powers; even their ASHES, strewn over a farmer's fields, were believed to ward off harmful insects and animals.
For the Celts cats symbolized evil forces and were frequently sacrificed, whereas the Norse goddess Freya was represented in a chariot drawn by cats.
The eye of the cat, which appears to change as the light strikes it from different angles, was considered deceptive, and the animal's ability to hunt even in virtual DARKNESS led to the belief that it was in league with the forces of darkness.
It was associated with lasciviousness and cruelty and was considered above all the "familiar" (Latin spiritus familiaris) of WITCHES, who were often said to ride black {tom-}cats to their sabbaths. Even today the superstitious believe the black cat brings bad luck.
Interestingly, humorous or satirical papyri from ancient Egypt often portray a "world turned upside down" in which mice in CHARIOTS wage war on cats in their entrenchments-not unlike the humor we find in "Tom and Jerry" cartoons of our day.
For some psychologists the cat is "the typically feminine animal, " a creature of the NIGHT, "and woman is, we know, more deeply rooted in the dark, intuitive side of life than man, with his simpler psyche" [Aepplil]
We are tempted to speculate that the negative valuation of the cat, which we have noted in many cultures, is related to an aggressive attitude toward that which is female. (Note the frequent feline metaphors in misogynist expressions and cliches: a "cat fight" between two women, a "catty" remark, "like a cat in heat.")
In heraldic tradition cats appear frequently, and with associations that recall little of the ailurophobia we find elsewhere: "Cats, being difficult to catch or to confine, signify liberty. The cat is tireless and cunning when going after its prey-the virtues of a good soldier. This is why the Swabians, Swiss, and Burgundians of old had cats in their coats of arms, standing for liberty" [Bbckler]
deer (male), stag, hart, or buck
A symbolic animal prominent in Old World cultures. The stag seems to have been frequently paired with the BULL to form a mythic and cosmological DUALITY, not unlike the wild HORSE and the wild bull in Ice Age CAVE art in the hypothesis of French archaeologists.
The stag's tree-like antlers with their periodic regeneration made him a symbol of rejuvenation, rebirth, and the passage of time. In Norse mythology four stags graze in the highest branches of the world-tree Yggdrasill, eating buds (hours), blossoms (days), and branches (seasons).
The deer's antlers were seen as symbols of the SUN'S rays.
In antiquity the stag was considered the enemy of poisonous SNAKES, its skin an amulet against snakebite. and powdered antler as protection for seed corn against black magic. In ancient China the deer (iu). through homonymy with the word for riches. came to symbolize wealth, and also filial piety (according to fable a young man disguised himself in a deerskin to obtain deer's milk as eye medicine for his blind parents); the animal accompanied the god of longevity, Shou-hsing. Christian iconography is greatly influenced by the 42nd Psalm: "As the hart panteth after the water brooks. so panteth my soul after thee, 0 God" [verse I] .
According to the early Christian text Physiologus, the deer spits water into every crevice in which poisonous snakes are hiding; it thus floats them out and tramples them. "So too does our Lord strike the serpent. the DEVIL, with heavenly WATER . . .. In another sense. ascetics are like the deer: with tears of penitence they extinguish the flaming ARROWS of evil, and they trample the great serpent. the devil. and kill him."
The deer is also said to be able to suck snakes out of their holes protecting itself against the snakes' venom by drinking spring water within three hours; then. supposedly, the deer will live another 50 years. "If you have the serpent in your heart, namely sin. then rush to the springs, to the veins of Holy Scripture. and drink the living water. . . and die not of sin."
Medieval bestiaries repeat all of this. adding: deer discovered the miraculous power of the herb dittany (Dictamnus albus. or gas plant) when they had hunters' arrows in them and found that eating dittany enables them to expel the arrows and their wounds to heal.
When deer cross a stream each one "lays its head on the hindquarters of the deer in front of it, thus reducing its weight. If they come to a filthy place, they quickly leap away from it. Thus, too, should Christians . . . help carry one another; they should leap over a place of filthy sin, and when they have satanic venom in their bodies they should run to Christ, the true spring and source, to confess and be rejuvenated" [Unterkircher].
Deer horn, according to the same sources, is an effective medicine, the RIGHT antler being more potent than the left, and burnt deer horn drives away any snake. Deer meat heals fever, and a salve made from the deer marrow is also an effect ive remedy for it. The stag appears frequently in heraldry, signifying "gentleness and mildness, because the deer is believed to have no yellow bile, the reputed reason for its long life, reaching a hundred years" [Bockler].
The antlers also appear alone (or a single antler, or a part thereof), referring, according to Bockler, to "strength." [n this context he explains the symbolism of "putting horns on" a husband:
The Greek emperor Andronicus had horns placed on the houses of women with whom he had slept, authorizing them to hunt, and thus we speak even today of putting horns on a cuckold.
Also in the time of Galeazzo Sforza, Count of Milan, women were not ashamed to sleep with princes, for their husbands came away not with paltry but with golden horns and received great honors." [n Celtic myth deer are "cattle of the fairies" and messengers between the world of the gods and that of mortals. The Celtic god Cemunnos was portrayed with antlers on his head like the shamans of ancient peoples. [n Christian sculpture of the Middle Ages the deer is sometimes portrayed nibbling on grapes (see WINE), symbolizing humanity, which even on earth can already enjoy the fruits of God's grace. The animal's striving to reach springs symbolizes the desire for purification through baptism: "Just as the deer devours the snake,/ Then rushes off his thirst to slake,/ Lets spring the venom wash away,! So all is well, can Christian say,! For he is saved, sin's trace is lost,! When in baptismal font he's washed." This is why the relief-work on such fonts often includes the representation of deer.
The imagery of ALCHEMY sees the deer as a symbol in the context of the classical myth of the hunter ACTAEON, who was transformed into a stag by the goddess DIANA (Artemis) : for the alchemist the deer is a reminder of the possible transmutation of metals in connection with the lunar (see MOON), feminine world of SILVER.
The animal is referred to figuratively in occasional idioms. Germans speak of "hunting the white deer" to indicate that a task is very difficult, or a goal unattainable; and in English "stag" refers to a man attending a social function unaccompanied by a woman: "to go stag," a "stag party."
The legends of St. Eustace and St. Hubert tell of a CROSS appearing in the antlers of a hunted stag. Other saints (Meinulf, Meinhold, Oswald, Prokop of Bohemia) are portrayed with deer as their attributes. [n pre-Columbian Central America antlered animals resembling the deer (in Aztec, mazatl; in Maya, manik) give their name to the seventh of the 20 day-signs of the calendar. Like these creatures of the wild, persons born under this sign are said to roam through nature, seeking distant regions and shunning fixed abodes. [n the Shinto religion of Japan, the stag is the mount of the gods and is often portrayed with their symbols on scrolls at shrines. (See also DOE.)
Diana
The Latin designation, popular in Europe since the Renaissance, for the goddess of the hunt, in Greek Artemis, who by this time had only allegorical or symbolic meaning. Statues of Diana with the crescent-MOON in her hair, bow and ARROWS in her hand, accompanied by hunting DOGS, adorned especially the gardens of the baroque period.
On occasion, the legendary scene is represented in which ACTEON, having observed the chaste Diana bathing, is transformed into a stag (see DEER) and tom apart by his own hunting dogs.
The crescent is explained by the fact that the early Italian goddess Diana was originally the goddess of the Moon and only later were the myths relating to Artemis, the mistress of the animals (potnia theron), carried over to her.
Diana seems to have lived on not only in garden sculpture but also as a mythical figure in Italy.
The American mythologist Charles G. Leland (1824-1903) reported in his book Arcadia (1899) about a cult of "WITCHES" (streghe) who revered Diana and appealed to her as a great goddess: "Diana! Diana! Diana! Queen of all magicians and of the dark night, the stars, the moon, all fate and fortune! You, mistress of ebb and flow, who shine at night upon the sea, throwing your light upon the water! You, commander of the sea, in your boat like a half-moon. . ." (from a hymn appearing in a legend in which Melampus has his mother ask that he be given the art of understanding the language of SNAKES).
doe or hind
A female DEER, stands in many myths for the female animal in general, which can have a demonic character, despite what we see as the gentleness of the doe.
The second of the Labors of Hercules was to capture the Hind of Ceryneia.
The chariot of Artemis (in Latin myth DIANA), the goddess of the hunt, was pulled by does.
The animal is also important in Asiatic myth. In the Ural-Altaic regions she was the supernatural ancestor of several peoples (compare TOTEM).
The Hungarian myth of origlls of a fleeing doe who lured two primeval hunter into a swamp, where she transformed herself into two princesses who coupled with the hunters, becoming the progenitors of the Huns and the Magyars, respectively.
Similarly, the family tree of Genghis Khan shows a doe and a WOLF as his progenitors.
A doe was said to have rescued fleeing Frankish warriors by showing them a point at which they could ford the Main River.
In many old European fairy tales young women and girls are transformed into does.
In one ancient Chinese legend a doe gives birth to a human child, a girl who is later reared by a man; but when she dies her body disappears, revealing her supernatural origins.
In prehistoric rites of passage does may have symbolized female initiates.
[In Mayan mythology of the Yucatan, Zip is a god of the hunt; under the name A Uuc Yol Zip he is portrayed in ancient hieroglyphic writings as a horned man having intercourse with a doe.
