Rider in Mirkwood

[Mister Underhill]

I’ve been in a mythical mood lately, and this little episode from The Hobbit seems tailor-made for symbolic analysis. Deer are familiar symbols in mythology, especially Celtic mythology, and there can be little doubt that Tolkien has used them in a similar capacity here. Sharkey, who is a more serious student of comparative mythology, can probably provide a more informed analysis than I, who am just a humble dabbler, but I’ll take my stab anyway.

The stag frequently appears in myth as an otherworldly creature, often one who entices heroes to the otherworld, or at least heralds otherworldly events or death. Here, the stag seems to herald a coming brush with the supernatural – first in Bombur’s immersion in the enchanted waters (contact with which transports him into a death-like slumber), and soon thereafter the party’s encounter with the Elven revelers, who, in The Hobbit, are portrayed with much greater emphasis on their magical faerie qualities than in LotR. In fact, the Elves in The Hobbit perform the same function as the stag usually does in myth – they lure the heroes off the known path and into a mystical, enchanted realm. What is the significance of the fact that Thorin fells the symbolic herald? Perhaps it’s a foreshadowing that the heroes, though they will soon face otherworldly trials, will eventually overcome them.

The hunting party that passes by is no doubt the Elven king and his court, who are hunting the hart. In Celtic mythology, the stag is considered to be a sacred, royal beast, and as such, its hunting was reserved for the nobility. The sound of their party passing by foreshadows the heroes’ encounter with King Thranduil. Now it occurs to me that Thorin’s killing of the stag may also symbolically represent and foreshadow the Dwarves’ trespasses against the king.

The white hind and her fawns are a symbol that the Dwarves misread. The gender of the deer and the fact that she is accompanied by her innocent progeny are symbolic of benevolence, and the fact that they are white supports this. Also, the white hind may be read as a solar symbol. Tolkien practically does the interpretation for us here:

Yet if they had known more about it and considered the meaning of the hunt and the white deer that had appeared upon their path, they would have known that they were at last drawing towards the eastern edge, and would soon have come, if they could have kept up their courage and their hope, to thinner trees and places where the sunlight came again.

I doubt that it’s accidental that the white hind and her fawns are ahead on the Dwarves’ path, which, had they continued to follow it, would have led them out of the forest and into the sun, while the dark hart ran back along the path in the direction from which they had come – the dark heart of the forest.