Celtic folklore: Deerly Beloved

Myths and Legends

This episode explores Celtic folklore through a tale of a young man named Ian who trades his horse for a mysterious stranger's gun, dog, and hawk. The story unfolds as

Key takeaways

• The deer in the story is not just an animal but a shape-shifting woman who offers guidance through food and conversation.

Main topics

• Celtic folklore
• Deer as shape-shifters in Irish mythology

Notable quotes

"Go in, Fisher's son, and eat and drink while you may."

Conclusion

The episode blends ancient Celtic myth with contemporary folklore, illustrating how

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Quick disclaimer, this episode contains a brief depiction of domestic violence early on. Also, there's more violence, in the form of kind of a lot of stabbings. Please see the post on mythpodcast.com for more info. This week on Myths and Legends, it's a story from Celtic folklore, where we'll see that deer earwax is the cure for what ails you, if what ails you is not being alive, and that if you're on an epic quest, you might want to check your pockets. especially if you have a witch's creepy son watching you sleep. On the Creature of the Week, it's an epic showdown of Ohio cryptids between a swamp thing that doesn't have arms and an off-brand orange-eyed Bigfoot. This is Myths and Legends, episode 441, Dearly Beloved. Speaker 1 (0:58) This is a podcast where we tell stories from mythology and folklore. Some are incredibly popular tales you might think you know, but with surprising origins. Others are stories that might be new to you, but are definitely worth a listen. Today, like I said, we're in Celtic folklore. Irish, to be specific. But not that specific, because it's more of a fairy tale, and the story doesn't concern itself with time, place, or history of any type. We'll jump in with a young man, Ian, meeting a stranger on the road. A stranger with a curious offer that Ian probably should not accept. Speaker 1 (1:47) When a strange man appears out of nowhere, puts his hand on your shoulder, and offers to buy your horse for a bizarre assortment of items, you don't sell him your horse. What, just because a stranger asks for something, he might be magic, or maybe he's not magic and you just weren't paying attention? Whatever it is, don't sell your horse, especially when it isn't your horse to sell. But Ian, the son of the fisherman who, in the months since his father drowned, had seen his mother struggle, looked up at the stranger. Each day and each month had been a slow descent into destitution. Here was something different. Here was a guy with a dog and a hawk holding a gun, which, yes, does give the negotiations an uncomfortable vibe, but Ian turned those negotiations on their head by offering a trade. Would the man part with his gun, dog, and hawk for the horse? Deal, the man said. and unloop the gun from his shoulder. So, yeah, Ian smiled with his mom back at their cottage later on that evening. Now we have a gun, a dog, and a hawk. Ian's mom looked at the young man. Okay, she was wondering if he thought about this at all. Did he know how to use a gun? Ian shook his head, but that was a good thing. He could learn. And you can make rounds, gunpowder too, the mother asked. Also, Do you know how to hunt with a hawk? How do you know that this thing, once you take that hood off, won't immediately go for our eyes? Ian was silent, and then he said, Well, we got a dog, too? Oh, those things that are everywhere, and you only need to leave a little food waste for a stray, and then you basically can't get them to leave? Ian said he was sorry. Oh, you'll be sorry. All right, the mother said, and picked up the stick. Speaker 1 (3:55) Ian felt the teeth in his mouth, avoiding his bulbous lip as he lay staring at the thatched roof of his home. At the very least, they were all there, the teeth that is, and none of them were loose. His mother snored a few feet away. He was just trying to help, but Ian knew he messed up. That his mother took out her grief over his father, her rage at the world over their circumstances, and her despair over her future on his face. hands, and back. But that only brought more pain into the world, not less. They were in this together. But if he was going to make things worse with his mistakes, and she was going to make things worse with her reactions to them, then maybe they were better off apart. He was just trying to do something. Hope, even foolish hope, that the stranger was magic and the dog could talk and the gun could hit anything it shot and the hawk would return with gold and jewels. was better than the wretchedness in which she wallowed. The dog slept on her bed, and the hawk sat hooded in the corner. Ian didn't need the dog, and he would let her figure out the hawk. As she made so clear, the gun was more a burden than a boon, so Ian looped it over his shoulder. It would be three days down the road before Ian, the swelling on his face finally retreating, realized that he didn't even look back. on the night that he left. He also realized that he had no idea how to survive in the wild. He hadn't eaten for three days. Imagining that he had traveled far enough that the farmhouse ahead wouldn't know him or his mother, Ian approached and knocked. Hospitality was different back then. I mean, they had to be because gun-toting strangers could knock on your door and you could let them in without a second thought. The farmer couple begged Ian to come in and share their breakfast and, while he... inhaled whatever was put in front of him, the farmer made small talk. Pointing to the gun in the corner that Ian had left, the farmer said he couldn't help but notice the young man had a gun. This was fortunate indeed. Oh, Ian said through a mouthful of food. We have a deer that comes and eats my wheat, and I cannot catch it, the farmer said. Bummer, I mean, you are in the woods, though, Ian said before guzzling the milk. The couple just looked at him. Oh, you want me to shoot it because I have a gun. Yes, that is something I know how to do. Mm-hmm, Ian said. He would need to wait until night though, so two more meals. Speaker 1 (6:40) Are you sure you know how to load that thing? The husband farmer asked. Absolutely. Why would I have a gun if I didn't know how to load it? I'm not a failure, Ian said. All right. He tapped everything out of the muzzle. He was sure this time. It was powder first, greased cloth, and then pushed the round in with the little stick thing. When you say this time, the man said, but decided to drop it. When everything was in, Ian pulled back the hammer and laughed. Boom. Take that, mom. The farmer and his wife looked at one another. Hmm. Seemed like there was some stuff this kid needed to work through. But first, he needed to work to earn those three fairly expansive meals that he ate. So that night, Ian found himself out by the man's wheat fields. Well, fields was generous. It was barely a plot, which actually made the deer's nightly incursions all that more devastating. Sometime around midnight, The wheat awash in moonlight. Ian heard leaves crunching on the forest's edge. He looked up and it was the deer. Presumably, I mean, how was he supposed to tell one deer apart from every other deer? But what he did know was that no deer was allowed here. He pulled back the hammer before remembering that he actually did back in the house and he had been waving a loaded cocked gun around for hours. Maybe he really didn't know how to use this thing. Steadying his hand on a rock, He looked down the barrel at the woman and wait, there, the deer, in its place. As soon as Ian aimed the gun, it was not a deer anymore, but a woman. She stood, her face glowing and framed by long, black hair, and her eyes looking right at him. Ian sat up and she was, once again, a deer, and a deer that did what deer do. It dashed off into the woods. Flinging himself to his feet, Ian looped the gun around his shoulder and took off after her. Speaker 1 (8:55) As the gun bounced along Ian's back, he might have thought that there was a loaded gun bouncing along his back. But there was no time. He could barely keep up with her. Sometimes he had to simply follow the sounds of the deer. She slowed, though, as she came to a clearing and, in the moonlight, Ian saw her leap to the top of a cottage thatched with heather, sitting there among the treetops. Wind carried the whispers from the roof, and Ian heard, in the woman's voice, Go in, Fisher's son, and eat and drink while you may. Having gotten used to eating again, Ian was actually kind of liking eating. So, sure, yeah, he was feeling a little peckish. He didn't intend on shooting the deer, now, so he may as well listen to her. He knocked on the door, but seeing as he had been invited in by the talking deer on the roof, he didn't see any issue with opening it, especially because it wasn't locked. A banked fire roared back to life when Ian piled a kindling, and it illuminated the house. Stacked with beds in the back and a wide desk against the far wall, the cottage looked like it could hold two dozen people. There was a hatch that led down to the cellar, but what interested him the most was dinner. Wine, bread, salted meat, a stew that had been heated earlier but whose pot over the fire was still hot to the touch, Ian gulped down as much food as he could. and then packed in a little bit more. Reclining in the chair, he heard voices at the edge of the forest. I don't know, the way I see it, we have kings, but how did a king earn the right to take stuff from us? Wait, he was born to the right parents? Meanwhile, I was born to cobblers, but I'm allergic to shoes, and what am I supposed to do, die? That's why I steal. It's a protest against society, one voice said. Oh, not me, another guy said. I like, I just like stealing. Killing, too. It's just so much fun. I mean, okay, I'm not so much down for the killing. What about, like, their families? The first voice said. Are they there? Can I kill them, too? That's my response to that. Objection, the second voice replied. Oh, I just, hmm, hope you're in the minority here and that we're more high-minded than that. The boss, presumably, shouted that they were not. They were all about killing and stealing for the... pure thrill and any additional reason or justifications were up to the individual thief and not required or encouraged. The first voice, just outside the door now, said that the only thing that made him feel like killing would be if someone ate his dinner. He got dangerously hangry and the door opened and the 20 men looked on the dinner table, bereft of food, save a few bread crusts and overly chewy fatty pieces of meat. With all the talk of killing outside, Ian had the good sense to hide, but not the good sense to hide well. He had ditched the chair and rolled behind a nearby cask, but it was just a cask. The fire burned and illuminated the whole of the cottage and projected the shadow of a guy huddled behind a cask. Get him, the leader yelled, and four men stepped forward. Ian raised his gun and it clicked. It clicked and didn't fire. Oh, it turns out he didn't know how to load it. He caught a punch to the face and dropped to the floor. Still a little dazed, he heard the orders. The four men were to take him to the edge of the forest and kill him. They had an early morning the next morning with all the stealing and killing, so don't make a show of it, just get it done. They dragged Ian out to the trees, and the young man looked up to the roof where the deer had sat. She... was gone. This wasn't how stories ended. There was a ferry, or one of the robbers had a change of heart, or that thought was interrupted when the robber threw Ian down hard on the ground, and in that instant, soared out and glinting in the moonlight, Ian could see that this was how some stories ended. This was how his story would end. He wouldn't find his fortune. He wouldn't marry a princess. He was a lost young man, jumping from tragedy to tragedy while the ground crumbled beneath him. And he would die here. Not a hero with a grand destiny, but a nobody with nothing. The robber in front stabbed him in the chest and pain rippled throughout Ian's body. He would have screamed, but something happened with his lungs and no sound came out. As he writhed on the ground and his vision slowly darkened, the robbers looked at him. Did I get him? Should I do it again? I don't want to do it again, the stabbing robber said. It looks like you got him. He's writhing and closing his eyes and stuff. Another one said, that's what they do, right? You're probably good. Probably does not mean dead, the stabbing robber said. If this guy crawled out to be revived at like a... mill or something, they would be out here the following night. Well then, do it again, the second guy said. Why don't you do it? Yeah, okay, I can't, the second guy replied. Babies, the lot of you, I'll do it, one of the guys said, and stepped forward. Ian, through his wincing and wordless screams, could see the man grimace, but glance over his shoulder at his compatriots. He lined up the sword with where he thought Ian's heart was. Being a medieval Irish robber, his anatomy knowledge was basically where he had seen other people get stabbed and die the fastest. Mouthing an, I'm sorry, the robber closed his eyes and extended his arm. To Ian's horror slash relief, that was the spot. The son of the fisher died a few moments later, killed by the robbers on the edge of the forest. Speaker 1 (15:07) And that's it for the story. We're just all going to sit quietly for the next several minutes and just like free period now. Just whatever you have to do, just hang out and do it. It's like study hall. But that will be right after this. My first thought for the first few weeks of August was calm before the storm. But Quince mentioned August as sort of the Sunday of summer, which I like a lot better. Sort of a chill time to plan and get ready