#saint hubert

Chain of the Guild of Saint Hubert, ca. 1542, anonymous silversmith, Northern Netherlands

Saint Hubert

656-727

Feast day: November 3

Patronage: hunters, mathematicians, opticians, metalworkers

Saint Hubert or Hubertus was passionately devoted to hunting. While chasing a stag on a Good Friday morning, he received a vision of a crucifix between the animal’s antlers. A voice warned him,“Hubert, unless you turn to the Lord, and lead a holy life, you shall quickly go down to hell.” It was a conversion experience for Hubert. After his wife died he became a priest and later a bishop working passionately for Our Lord.

I’ve been meaning to write a little about why I find deer such a compelling theme in horror and I got a message that motivated me to put it in writing. While deer are beautiful creatures, often seen as delicate and gentle, every deer contains within its body a violent horror story of its own. We see this quote played out in every video of a deer trapped inside a house:

“Naturally, the nervous species are difficult to keep in captivity. If put into an enclosure, they are likely to panic, and either die of shock or batter themselves to death against the fence in their attempts to escape…No gazelle species has ever been domesticated.” Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

I have come to believe that deer make such good companions for horror because they hold multitudes within their frightened, panting bodies. We can project anything into their sweet, vacant eyes. They are prey, they are sacrifice, they are objects of veneration. They are symbols of innocence; they are vectors of disease. The sight of one in a sunlit meadow can calm your heart yet they will crash into your speeding car without a thought for their own life, or yours. They creatures of noble beauty; they are vessels for our worst nightmares.

[Image ID: a lineless digital drawing of a stag facing the viewer. The stag has brown branching antlers which form the shape of a cross intersecting a circle, a brown and tan face with dark eyes, white and tan fur in a thick mane around its neck, a brown shaggy body, and lighter tufts of fur around its ankles. The stag is shining. There is an open wound on its rear ankle, and a stream of blood flows out and floats behind it like a banner. The background is mottled with squiggly abstract shapes, starting as dark green on the edges and becoming gold in the middle. Gold text on either side of the stag says: "Black as the night and warm as blood / and thickest here in the heart of the wood / the earth peels back and there... / the stones cry out, the tree-roots leap / you burn alone in the breast of the deep: / my beloved Jesus fair." Gold squiggly lines surround the text and form other shapes in the background. /end ID]