High Flying Reindeer

 


High Flying Reindeer

Now Dasher! Now Dancer! Now Prancer and Vixen! … 

Now, come on! Reindeer can’t fly, can they?

A quick Google search for ‘reindeer flying’ brought up two suggested questions: How do reindeer fly? and Are reindeer real? I did wonder why people who were old enough to type into a search engine bar would ask these questions, but then, I realised that I had just done it too. Most of the results were, unsurprisingly, related to Santa’s reindeer, but it turns out that the 1823 poem ‘The Night before Christmas’ with authorship claimed by Clement C Moore in 1837, isn’t the beginning of the flying reindeer story. There are beliefs and legends surrounding reindeer taking flight dating back to prehistory.


In the central and eastern regions of Mongolia, and into parts of Northern Europe and Asia, carved Reindeer Stones stand up to 15 feet high. The earliest of these unusual stones is thought to be between 5000 and 7000 years old with most dating to the Late Bronze age 1200 to 700 BCE and into the Iron Age. Reindeer stones probably originated in central Mongolia since that is where there is the greatest concentration. Later, they spread to eastern regions and into parts of Northern Europe and Asia. Over 1200 of the stones have been found so far. These four-sided granite monoliths are carved, usually on the east facing side, with beautiful and intricate images of flying reindeer, legs extended front and back and their necks stretched upwards. Their ornate, curling antlers which support sun-disks or other sun related imagery are embellished with small bird’s heads. The stones are usually associated with grave mounds (khirgisuur) as well as slab graves. The reindeer-sun-bird imagery also appears in the tattooed skin of the warriors buried there. The connection between reindeer and the sun is a common theme in Mongolian nomadic culture and shamanism, this along with tattoos depicting the same imagery, suggests that they symbolise the passage of the dead from an earthly life to an afterlife in the sky with the reindeer assisting and protecting them on their journey.  


Further north, in the sub-Arctic regions of Siberia, Finland and Norway the shamanic tradition of flying reindeer also prevailed (and maybe still does) amongst the Sami people who, like the Bronze Age Mongolians, are reindeer herders. 

However, in this instance the cause of flight was contained in little red and white bundles beneath pine trees in the forests in winter. Not Christmas gifts, but the Fly Agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria) which is the oldest known intoxicant in the world, and reindeer love it! They seek it out and devour it with gusto, then proceed to leap about. Fly Agaric contains two very similar compounds, ibotenic acid which induces nausea and vomiting and muscimol which creates euphoric feelings, happily for the Sami, there are ways to remove most of the ibotenic acid from Fly Agric: drying at a high temperature (in a small sack above a fireplace), steeping it in milk, or allowing it to pass through a mammal’s digestive system. In the latter case, the muscimol is expelled in the animal’s urine. Yes, the Sami reindeer herders drank reindeer urine in order to get happy and most likely watch their reindeer fly around.


Maybe, this Christmas we should leave Santa a cup of reindeer pee instead of Bailies to help him on his magical trip around the world.


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