Sciath Fia Bairr: Stag Shield

In 2017 I spent several months working on a carving of a stag wreathed in runes. It was inspired in part by a painting I did several years ago called Crainn na hÉireann: The Trees of Ireland  which can be seen on the Paintings gallery page. That painting itself was inspired by a poem from the medieval Irish saga Buile Suibhne – The Frenzy of Suibhne. Within this ancient tale there is a poem that sings the praises of the trees of Ireland, and another that celebrates the stags of the glens. The painting I did focused primarily on the trees, so for this carving I took one of the small stag elements from that painting and expanded upon it to develop the design for this shield.

The poem about the stags begins: “O little stag, thou little bleating one, O melodious little clamourer, sweet to us is the music thou makest in the glen.”* To the left is shown the central medalion of the original painting that became the basis of the shield design – you can see the similarity of the details and posture of the stag, which measures only 2” across.

The design features a rearing stag with a border that features carved runes from my invented runic alphabet. I wanted the texture of language surrounding the shield, without it being something that would be readable – the words formed by the runes have meaning, but that meaning is concealed. The border features oak leaf and acorn medallions, a visual reference to a part of the poem: “Thou oak, bushy, leafy, thou art high beyond trees.”*

The shield is carved from a single piece of Honduran mahogany, and measures 22″ in diameter and is 1” thick overall. True mahogany wood is a joy to carve and holds the carving details very well. The oil and wax finish brings out the warm reddish brown glow of the mahogany wood.

Below is a gallery of images taken throughout the process of creating this carving. Each image includes a description – click on the first image to launch the slideshow and use the arrows to navigate through all the images.

The design drawing for the border of the shield.

Laying out the design.

The background is routered.

Cleaning up and leveling the background.

Rough carving on the shapes and border.

Basic shapes are roughed out and ready to be refined.

Tools used to shape and refine the border.

Fine tuning the border.

Working on refining the stag.

Refining hte stag’s head and antlers.

Back bent gouges used to carve the spirals.

Adding the fine details on the stag’s head and neck.

Tools used to layout the border.

Drawing runes and oak leaf medallion on the border.

Carving the first of the runes.

Adding texture to the background.

Detail on the stag’s haunches.

My signature on the back of the completed shield.

A fresh coat of oil is applied.

Detail of the finished shield.

Detail of the finished shield.

The completed stag shield.

*Poem quoted from: Buile Suibne (The Frenzy of Suibhne) being  The Adventures of Suibhne Geilt  by J. G. O’Keeffe, published by the Irish Texts Society in 1996.