Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Blowing The Morte: The Rites Of Manhood In William Rayner's Stag Boy, Christophe Van Eecke

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

William Rayner’s young adult novel Stag Boy (1972) is often discussed in surveys of children’s literature as a classic title, but it has received little probing critical attention. This article argues that the novel uses its narrative of a boy’s psychic association with a giant stag as an allegory for the transition from boyhood into manhood. In a detailed close reading of the novel, and following the model of the love chase of medieval romance, it is shown how the author borrows key elements from folklore (the shaming ritual of the stag hunt), myth (Herne the Hunter), and quest romances …