The white hart has held a prevalent place in British folklore for centuries.
The likelihood of you knowing a local ‘white hart’ pub is high, given that King Richard II made it compulsory in the 1300’s for pubs and inns to have a sign in order to identify them as official watering holes.
Many adopted the noble white hart as their sign, as it was the personal badge of the King.
The elusive creature was known for evading capture.
One moonlight evening as Master Fox was taking his usual stroll in the woods, he saw a number of Pheasants perched quite out of his reach on a limb of a tall old tree. The sly Fox soon found a bright patch of moonlight, where the Pheasants could see him clearly; there he raised himself up on his hind legs, and began a wild dance. First he whirled ’round and ’round like a top, then he hopped up and down, cutting all sorts of strange capers. The Pheasants stared giddily. They hardly dared blink for fear of losing him out of their sight a single instant.
Now the Fox made as if to climb a tree, now he fell over and lay still, playing dead, and the next instant he was hopping on all fours, his back in the air, and his bushy tail shaking so that it seemed to throw out silver sparks in the moonlight.
By this time the poor birds’ heads were in a whirl. And when the Fox began his performance all over again, so dazed did they become, that they lost their hold on the limb, and fell down one by one to the Fox.
I know it may be a little bit cliché, but I care not. I’m going to go ahead and say it – I’ve always considered wolves as one of my ‘spirit’ animals. Maybe because I’m a bit of a lone wolf myself, but on a more logical and subliminal level, they’ve been steeped in local culture and lore from my home town of Bury St Edmunds.
A single wolf was supposedly meant to have guarded the head of St Edmund when he was executed by viking raiders.
They cut off his head and threw it deep in to the forest, where his followers were lead after the wolf exclaimed “here, here, here!”. They were able to reunite his head with his body, which miraculously became reattached!
True or not, you decide! But this painting is actually based on one of my own experiences from being an avid skywatcher. I have witnessed several ‘unexplained’ occurrences of light in the night sky, but a particular sight has never left my mind. It is impossible to recreate what I saw that night, but I am happy in the knowledge that this humble representation will be forever documented in the medium of oils.
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