The Deer and the Dwarf

The god Diónysos is one of the most difficult to decipher. The knowledge of him belonged to the mistery cults, and those are lost. Nonetheless, there are a few interesting clues.

 

It all started when I was searching about the meaning of dwarfs and deers in norse mythology. Apparently the dwarfs Dáinn and Dvalinn share the same name with two of the four deers who eat from Yggdrasil, Dáinn, Dvalinn, Duneyrr and Duraþrór, and so are related. But how and why?

 

In Samael Aun Weor's lecture on Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung he says that the dwarf Alberich symbolizes the mortal ego, which is frail and afraid, trying to encapsulate or dominate the soul that pervades the body, represented by Siegfried, who eventually taunts and even mocks Alberich, for his small stature, ugliness and overall small-mindedness. This is probably not the meaning of a dwarf in norse mythology, but the dwarfs, also associated with the svartálfar, the black-elves, may suggest a "light" being (elf), inhabiting a dark environment or limited vessel (the world, or the body), which agrees to an extent with the rationale behind Wagner's dwarf Alberich.

 

Furthermore, that there are four dwarfs, beings that are workers of smaller stature than the gods, supporting the heavenly dome created from the skull of Ymir, resemble the demiurgic, or rather, demiurgic-like function of the mundane gods, which according to Proclus, are arranged in a composite tetrad:

 

"But things in generation proceed from the imperfect to the perfect, and receive the same boundary indefinitely. Besides this, the tetrad arising from the generation of these divinities is adapted to the orders of the fabricators of the sublunary region; in order that they may contain multitude unitedly, and the partible impartibly; and also to the natures that exist in generation. For the sublunary elements are four; the seasons according to which generation is evolved are four; and the centres are four. And in short, there is an abundant dominion of the tetrad in generation."

 

i.e., if the mundane gods are arranged in groups of four, and as the dwarfs they support the heavenly dome, they establish divine dominance and influence here on earth, linking the Earth to Heaven, imitating the divine powers of preservation, differentiation or animation, stability, and reversion back to the source. In the same way, the four dwarfs make a circle around Earth, that is, these powers in imitation of celestial gods make a full circle: the intellectual (monadic) form of Earth is given to them (which is one with Heaven, thus the supporting of the heavenly dome on Earth), they expand it by dividing it (the titanic work), they harmonize it (imitating the harmonizing gods), and bind to motion again, so that matter, what is apparently dead, is actually moved, that is, not left without or apart from life and divinity.

 

If on one hand, the dwarfs represent the four elements, on the other hand, they represent the way the four elements interact and are bound to each other, as in a composite unity. Taking the example of the solar system, the sun exerts gravity on the other planets; the planets in turn by their atttraction to the sun, repel each other, setting them in motion in their orbits. They on their turn exert influence on the sun, making it wabble in its center, and so a hamonic system of opposite forces is created, creating a full circle, a circle composed of unity, division and motion, rythm/hamony, and retroaction/resonance, the bouncing back of creation, like the bell of the tibetans, creating a composite unit of four stages.

 

Deers, on the other hand, are usually depicted in eurasian burial motifs, in european fairytales, so their association with death and the afterlife is a fact:

 

"Among the animals the deer was considered to be the mediator par excellence between the worlds of gods and men; thus at the funeral ceremony the soul of the deceased was accompanied in his/her journey to the underworld (Tamag) or abode of the ancestors (Uçmag) by the spirit of a deer offered as a funerary sacrifice (or present symbolically in funerary iconography accompanying the physical body) acting as psychopomp." (Wikipedia)

 

But why is it so? On one hand, the imagery of a wolf, another animal associated with the underworld, and people hunting deers in the mist of morning or evening is suggestive - going after something elusive that hides itself in the dark woods, another world when compared to the social world of humans. On the other hand, the deer eats the leaves of trees, as in norse mythology, and its antlers resemble the branches of a tree, and so probably an analogy was made between the deer and what draws nourishment from the World Tree, receiving immortality.

 

 

In the first branch of the Mabinogion, the former imagery also appears, at the very beginning, when Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, in his hunt stumbles across the hounds of Arawn, king of Annwn, the underworld, feeding on a stag. When Pwyll agrees to change place with Arawn, and rule the underworld for a year and a day to repay for the incident, it seems it is telling us that a mortal in fact become the ruler of the underworld if only he/she is honourable - implying perhaps in fact the 'otherworldy' origin of mortals, who have a rightful place there.

 

As the image of a psychopomp, leading the conciousness into the otherworld, it appears in the interior plate A of the Gundestrup Cauldron:

Cernunnos

 

There the deer is besides Cernunnos, the horned god. But also a wolf on his other side, and a serpent in his hand. The deer, that pure vigorous animal seems to point the way onto the other world, chased by the wolf, the animal which chases without fear. In a way, perhaps both complement each other, since the human mind and desire also seek answers in the mist and in the dark, like the wolf. Chasing itself perhaps.

 

The serpent, on the other hand, points to shedding of the person's skin throughout the cycle of reincarnations. Because it's a cycle, it is represented by the torc in his other hand, a C-shaped bracelet, perhaps associated with the moon, a cyclical satelite sometimes appearing in a C-shape, which may represent the triple aspect of the goddess, Maiden, Mother and Crone, or growth, maturity and decay. In a word, transformation.

 

Deers and serpents are also animals associated with Dionysus. As Zagreus he is horned, He wears deer skin (literally, uses the metaphorical deer as his vessel to lure Mankind), and tames snakes, meaning he is master over Man, or better, over the cycle of reincarnations that Mankind is subject to.

 

So what exactly is the deer, and its connection to Dionysus?

 

The deer, like the bull, represents vitality, but one that goes into the woods - the otherworld, or onto its origin, whereas the bull may represent the vitality in this world, or going into manifestation.

 

So, if the deer represents vitality in its, pure, naked form, it is not a surprise if Dionysus used the deer as a vessel, since, as Karl Kerényi implies,

 

"The philosopher Heraclitus, unifying opposites, declared that Hades and Dionysus, the very essence of indestructible life (zoë), are the same god. Among other evidence, Karl Kerényi notes in his book that the Homeric Hymn To Demeter, votive marble images and epithets all link Hades to being Dionysus. He also notes that the grieving goddess Demeter refused to drink wine, as she states that it would be against themis for her to drink wine, which is the gift of Dionysus, after Persephone's abduction, because of this association; indicating that Hades may in fact have been a "cover name" for the underworld Dionysus. He suggests that this dual identity may have been familiar to those who came into contact with the Mysteries. Dionysus also shared several epithets with Hades such as Chthonios ("the subterranean"), Eubouleus ("Good Counselor"), and Euclius ("glorious" or "renowned")." (Wikipedia on Hades)

 

And so the deer is, like Cernunnos, a representation of a psychopomp, the leader of souls into the underworld, or more precisely, into the upperworld, because as shown by Karl Kereny and Proclus, Dionysus/Hades is the monad or summit of the material world, from which he proceeds into manifestation

 

Proclus in his exposition of the nature of Dionysus, says that the god is the monad of the mundane gods, and that the soul is extended throughout the world on account of the limbs of Dionysus - the physical part of him - being torn apart by the Titans. So he is present in our world as its summit and unit, and as its extension and multiplicity, or its logos. He dies, but while he is divided and dead, his heart (essence) is still beating, remaining still intact in purest form, in the form of the heart sewn unto Zeus's tigh, retrieved by Athena, the protective and preserving power, while his limbs are present in everything as their logos.

 

It seems a contradiction and a paradox, and it is. How can a god be dead and alive at the same time, divided and one at the same time?

But this was the essence of the mysteries, of which little is known because not only did they stopped being practiced, but also if they where still in practice, they would still be secretive. Only the superhuman effort of Plato and neoplatonic philosophers like Proclus gives us a glimpse into what the rationale of the mysteries might have been.

 

This paradox, though, points perhaps to the origin of plurality in the world, and how different things "agree with other" (Heraclitus B51), function unapparently as a whole.