Stag Boy

by William Rayner, Michael Heslop (Illustrator)

Becoming one with the black stag is a dangerous dalliance for Jim as he finds it increasingly more difficult to return to his own life.

Genres: Fiction, Young Adult, Childrens, Fantasy

160 pages, Paperback

First published August 24, 1972

Reviews

[Capn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jim returned to his childhood home on Exmoor hoping to clear the smoke of Wolverhampton from his asthmatic lungs. But he learned that the ancient valley had more to offer him than clean country air. He had always had an affinity with nature, but one day he found an old antlered helmet, and after that he began to see the animal world through animal eyes. Legends came to life through him - and through the stag who now shared his very pulse.
Throughout the season of the hunt, stag and boy were one: observers noticed only that Jim grew strong and manly, and that the stag developed an uncanny human intelligence which allowed him to outwit the hunters at every turn. Only Mary knew the truth, so only she was frightened when the season came to an end and it finally became obvious that the stag had to die . . .
The unique power of this novel lies in the way it knits together the forces of ancient legends and rituals with the tensions of a young emotional relationship.
Jacket design by Michael Heslop

Make that last line of the inside-flap summary read "with the sexual awakening of young lovers", and I'd find it more accurate. Jim Hooper is weedy, asthmatic, and poor. Edward Blake is tall, dashing, confident and well-heeled. Mary Rawle, Jim's childhood sweetheart and bosom friend now has an ample bosom and some serious sex appeal. This part of the story doesn't need much more elaboration: horny beta male vs. horny alpha male, and a upwardly mobile young lady torn between being admired and accepted into 'the smart set' of society with an attendant sparkling future in the bright lights of big cities, and her humble, rural past intertwined with throbbing yearning. Yeah. Primal urges thrumming through her flesh. Rutting season in sight.

I'm just here for the folk horror, myself. "Why does the hunter wear the horns?" asks Jim. Herne is there, barrows and ruined forts, standing stones along the windswept moors of Exmoor in Devon (I'm wanting to visit Porlock, Webber's Post and the Dunkery and Horner Woods area now!).

All Mr Evered's talk about the Stone Age and the Bronze Age, about microliths, hill-forts or cult-figures - suddenly it seemed nothing, just dry academic stuff. He felt a strong distaste for it. The voice boomed in him for a last time: "Gods do not live in the dry wood but in the green."

Like one of my all-time favourite stories, The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy, this is also a west-country story of locals with long memories and superstitions, where pagan sacrifice has long since disappeared... or perhaps has just taken a new form.

There's all kinds of interesting contrast - I'm sure a school teacher could butcher this, stringing it up by its heels like a defeated stag and splaying its entrails on the rocks for the hounds to gobble. Mary's an avid rider, taking part in the local Hunts. Her father has poured concrete on 'good barley land' to make a caravan campsite and a windowless black barn for caged battery hens, and has made a killing at it. Mary's eager to continue her ascent to womanhood, which is depicted by dances and car-rides (and parking) with the handsome and attentive Edward, and the expensive but tasteless modern interior redecoration her mother proudly boasts with the family's newfound wealth. The Rawles are equally despised as praised by the locals, and one has the sense that the tide is beginning to turn from traditional agriculture to the burgeoning tourism industry and unethical, unnatural and very profitable farming methods.

Much of the Mary and Jim interplay reminded me of the Virgin and the Unicorn (muzzle laid on breast, rather than horn upon a lap), and the sexual innuendo was a bit rich for me (my brain kept conjuring up comedic interruptions for entertainment), but there's just enough T & A here to satisfy a YA male audience without being the sort of book guidance counsellors might recommend on the sly as being educational in personal matters. There's humour, too - I enjoyed Jim's vicarious dalliances with the stag, and his personal vendetta against Edward, and the humilation he was able to mete out. I think Rayner completely captured the cocksure caperings of adolescent males, and the almost violent in-swelling of testosterone and its resultant power into the young psyche. Controlling the beast, or letting the beast control you, etc.

As I said, I came for the folk horror, and I was beginning to think that Rayner had abandoned that particular line, until he resumed it late again in the story. We find out a little more about what the Yeandles know or don't (Jim has been sent back to his hometown to stay on their farm following the death of his father, and his mother has stayed on in the city to earn their keep by working multiple undesirable jobs). Old Sam, a farm worker, and Mr and Mrs Yeandle are suspiciously tight-lipped throughout the tale, and we're not sure if their references to Jim as 'a young buck' are telling or coincidental. Towards the end, a narrow shaft of light illuminates some of this mystery, but doesn't lay all bare. While there is closure to the plot, there remains just enough open-endedness to suggest that the underlying forces persist.

I've been fascinated by this subject and have read many books now dealing with the creepy pagan unpinnings of the Horn Dance at Abbot's Bromley (and the Hobby Horses at Minehead and Padstow - Minehead's is referenced in passing in this particular book). Bone Jack is not nearly as good as Stag Boy, but panders to the same sort of audience (if not a younger set - I know there was some debate about it being too intense or scary for a middle grade rating, but I don't agree). In terms of 'maturity' or mature themes (i.e. shyness around the opposite sex right up to burning loins), I'd put Bone Jack and The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy (a.k.a. The Wild Hunt of the Ghost Hounds in the USA in '86) at a lower age level than Stag Boy where nipples are fondled and much of the thrust (heh) of the story would be lost as unrelatable to the prepubescent set. If you're wanting more romance and less substance, then there's The Horns of Danger by Mabel Esther Allan, who also wrote the much better The May Day Mystery about the 'obby 'oss of Padstow. This one is free to borrow from OpenLibrary.

Billy Buck (published in the USA as The Visitor: A Story of Suspense, and infinitely easier to find on the secondhand market) follows a similar line, no romance (younger protagonists), but has more of the darkness associated with mob mentality and group dynamics. As such, I find it the creepiest of the lot.

Of these, Stag Boy (free to borrow from OpenLibrary), Billy Buck/The Visitor: A Story of Suspense (The Visitor is on OpenLibrary now!), and The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy (also on OpenLibrary) are the juvenile ones I wholeheartedly recommend on the antler-headed pagan rites theme. I've yet to the read the adult ones, but they're in the queue.

[Murray Ewing · Rating 5 out of 5]

Returning to the Exmoor farm he grew up in, to convalesce after living in the city made him ill, 15-year-old Jim Hooper discovers an ancient, stag-horned helmet that allows him to share in, and even influence, the consciousness of a powerful black stag, the local hunt’s prime target. Meanwhile, his attempts to rebuild his friendship with local girl Mary Rawle are thwarted by her attraction to the well-off, 17-year-old Edward Blake, ‘tall and strongly made, a good rugger player and a first-rate horseman.’ Jim starts to appear before Mary’s window at nights in the body of the black stag, urging her to ride him, drawing her into a secret world of their own. But as much as he gains from contact with the stag’s natural strength and nobility, it also starts to infect him with its wildness, and draws him into its ultimate confrontation with the hunt.

Stag Boy is a short, powerful novel, with a lot of its strength coming from just how naked its central metaphor is: Jim’s contact with the stag is an expression of his adolescent sexuality. At first he’s caught on the edge of adult yearnings while trapped in a boy’s body; but as the stag’s influence makes itself felt, his growth in confidence tips into a dangerous arrogance towards both Edward (his male rival) and Mary, who becomes his one chance of redemption. But the supernatural element gives Stag Boy a genuine sense of the danger, wildness, and the power of both human feelings and the wider world of nature, giving it an honesty it perhaps couldn’t achieve otherwise.

[Tania · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great read! Up there with other books written the same era - Billy Buck, The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy, Moon Stallion, The Dark is Rising Sequence and Alan Garner's books.
Delving into the old primal days of yore where young teens connect with the ancient ones, rediscovering a link to earth and spirit energies that the ancestors once knew. The Hunt is such an important part of British legend, it's such a shame arrogant modern man has lost it's true meaning. All humility and respect for the hunted beasts is long gone, and ego has taken over, the desire to win or get revenge is toxic. The hunter forgets he rots down to become fodder for the hunted...

[Rebekah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this strange, beautiful book. The language is lovely and dreamlike. The story is tense and filled with momentum. The use of symbol and myth create layers of meaning that are right up my alley. Reminiscent of Gervase by Ann Moray.

[Sam Bossen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a young adult novel where a boy dealing with adolescence is learning to become a man through a mysterious connection between him and a black stag that roams the nearby forest. Through the descriptions you can almost feel the thrill of the animal as it races through the woods. There is something about the writing that brings this story to life and almost makes you feel as the main character, Jim, suffers through dealing with class differences and young love set in 1970s England.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful, moving and compelling short novel. Treading similar thematic territories - our bond with nature or lack of it; magic; love; folklore - as Alan Garner and Susan Cooper, Rayner makes his own mark with fine and unusual use of language and a withering cast towards the damage wrought by urbanisation and homogeneity.

[Nicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one was different.

I read this as research for different tellings of the The Wild Hunt in folklore.

Jim and Mary are childhood friends. Jim tells her wild stories forshadowing his future. He moves away and comes back years later. As a 15-year-old he meets Mary again and his feelings for her have grown over time, but there is also a rival for her attentions.

Jim finds a magical horned helm which is connected to Herne the Hunter. When he places it upon his head he is granted a magical connection to a black stag that is being hunted by the local Hunt.

This is a coming of age story mixed with commentary on the effects of industry on both the environment and local cottage/home business and also folklore. Overall the story was good, but I could have done without the strange sexual metaphor with the stag visiting Mary at night. It was super weird.

[Nikhilā · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. The best book I have read in a long time. Beautifully written, great story. I cannot believe this book has sat on my parents' (and now my) bookshelves my entire life and I've never read it before.

[Liberty · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is very nearly my ideal - teenage boy finds neolithic stag helmet, speaks to Herne the Hunter, becomes one with a stag and in the form of a deer seduces teenage girl for wild outdoor sexiness.
The downside is that the female character revels in going limp and going along with anything every time someone tries to kiss her. She only objects when someone tries to actually rape her when she realises that he might regret it later. She stops a rape in case the rapist regrets it later!
This seems too old-fashioned an attitude to female sexuality even for 1972 when this was first published.

[Ice Bear · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book when I read it, and kept it to read again. Will probably seem very different 35 years + later.

[Damon Isherwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of those perfect young adult books that help you survive adolescence. Coming of age with a dose of celtic mythology.