The White Stag

  Texts: Erec and Enide 

The Medieval Bestiary on stags: 

"Stags are lustful, but the female deer can only conceive at the rising of the star Arcturus. The deer gives birth in dense woods, and teaches her young to flee over high places. When they hear hunting dogs bark, they change direction to the other wind to keep the dogs from scenting them.

People who eat venison are protected from fever because stags are never feverish. The smoke from burning stag antlers is deadly to snakes. A drink made from the tears and the heart bones of a stag is a cure for troubles of the heart."           

Literary Context    

"But before the court was disbanded, the King told his knights that he wished to hunt the White Stag in order to observe worthily the ancient custom. When my lord Gawain heard this, he was sore displeased, and said: "Sire, you will derive neither thanks nor goodwill from this hunt. We all know long since what this custom of the White Stag is: whoever can kill the White Stag must forsooth kiss the fairest maiden of your court, come what may."      

Stags figure into the world of medieval romance in how they represent lust and affairs of the heart. Hunting imagery is often used in the romance genre to allude to sexual conquests, or the romantic pursuit of a desired lover. Therefore it is fitting that the reward for killing the White Stag is the right to kiss the fairest maid.  That it is a white stag might correlate to purity, or it may only speak to this stag's rarity and why it is worthy of it's own hunt.   

The bestiary entry above and the text are synchronized in how they understand stags -the beasts are thought of in terms of hunting, love/lust, and consumption. The modern representation below is not a close match in these respects, but does follow the traditions of stags being portrayed as relatively positive and noble (compared to serpents and monkeys) and in it's relationship with snakes. 

Modern Representation

The Stag in the Harry Potter is a paternal and protective figure, representing the protagonist's own father.
Also interesting: The stag is the patronus of of both Harry and his father, both of whom have archnemeses in House Slytherin- representing snakes.