If it's A Stag in a T-shirt, Witches Are Afoot!
Tuesday April 29, 2008
In an absolutely Monty Pythonesque chain of logical weirdness, a Hampshire, England, newspaper associates the recent discovery of a headless deer with the fact that witches once frolicked in the nearby New Forest. The mutilated stag was found at the edge of a field, beheaded and dressed in a bloody white t-shirt. The paper goes on to tell us that "rumours were rife of links to witchcraft, as [the village of] Burley is known to have historical connections with the occult." Well, yeah, Sybil Leek grew up nearby, and certainly old Gerald Gardner had some good times around the New Forest area... but I'm still missing the "headless deer > t-shirt > witchcraft" link.
In fact, the local constabulary are even pooh-poohing the idea, which makes you wonder why the paper felt a need to even include it in the story. A police spokesman said, "There is nothing to suggest that there is any link with witchcraft and to do so would be wild speculation... we are led to believe it died of natural causes and that somebody then took its head for its antlers."
A member of the Burley Parish Council did say, "Putting a T-shirt on it was odd."
Thanks to Jennifer Emick of Alternative Religions for tipping me off to this one!
In fact, the local constabulary are even pooh-poohing the idea, which makes you wonder why the paper felt a need to even include it in the story. A police spokesman said, "There is nothing to suggest that there is any link with witchcraft and to do so would be wild speculation... we are led to believe it died of natural causes and that somebody then took its head for its antlers."
A member of the Burley Parish Council did say, "Putting a T-shirt on it was odd."
Thanks to Jennifer Emick of Alternative Religions for tipping me off to this one!
Comments
Yeah, I read this article earlier. The mention of witchcraft seemed really pointless. Like in a round about way, they were just including it to “shake things up” or whatever.
Shock value - sad!
I live & work in the forest not too far from Burley.If the buck was an old or ‘Great buck’ it may well have had antlers ‘uncast’(as most have lost their antlers at this time of the year).
The locals would have known that the local forest Keeper would have been called out to investigate the animal. I think that this was someone taking the antlers & adding a tee shirt as a joke (some funny people around Burley)or a dig at the Keeper for loosing a much prized set of antlers!
I worked as a forest Keeper for 18 years & the local commoners & poachers love a joke at a Keepers expense! Believe me, I had more than a few played against me!
Modern media has gotten so out of hand they will include anything irrelevant to the subject to cause more contoversy in hopes to get more story out of something with little or no face value to begin with. This is one major reason why I don’t watch TV, listen to the radio, read the papers, etc. The internet is the only ‘non-controlled’ form of media anymore, and even out here it is hard to find the truth anymore…Modern Media
Does this particular Hampshire paper need more subscribers that badly that it had to make a wild and outrageous speculation about something that was more than likely done (in very bad taste and disrespect for the stag) as a jest at the local games keeper????
Legitimate media has become as sensationalized and trivial as those ridiculous gossip mags.
“putting a tee shirt on it was odd” Odd?
what does it take to make it to “bizarre” in this town?
Believe me! For the New Forest, this is just ‘odd’ - nowhere near ‘bizarre’!!
We leave that to the tourists!
sounds more like hunters went out, after a few (too many) beers, grabbed a deer head for the wall and left a t-shirt on it cuz’ “Bud” felt the need to put his t-shirt on it and run naked with his beer gut flapping in the breeze and screaming..”Wooooooooooo, Hey Earl, I shot me a deer!!”