Stag Forest Gargoyle
Description
A gargoyle with a stag's antlers, just over six inches tall. Part woodland spirit, part sentinel, and grounded rather than gothic despite the wings.
A gargoyle proper is a waterspout, and the grotesque face on it was often understood to turn away worse things than itself, though scholars disagree about whether they warded or simply pictured what was being kept outside. The antlers pull that job out of the cathedral and back into the trees, where the horned guardian of the wood is at least as old an idea.
Good to Know
4 by 3.5 by 6.25 inches. Cold cast resin, which is resin with stone or metal powder blended into it. It takes fine detail far better than plain resin and has real weight in the hand. Dust it with a dry brush rather than a cloth, which catches on the detail.
How to Use It
A threshold piece. By a door, on a windowsill, at the edge of an altar facing outward. Guardians work better at the boundary of a space than at the centre of it.
Pair It With
The Medusa statue is the other guardian here. For a threshold, the Pentagram Brass Bell and Protect Your Peace. For the stag itself, the Buffalo Spirit Animal keeps the same note. More in totems and statues.