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It was the right day for him to come, last December. For a few weeks his picture had been appearing on some of the Christmas mail that dropped through the doors. His kind was pictured in many forms and shapes on the cards, but this fellow was real.
The children had been singing about him, their eyes shining with excitement. Their imaginations working overtime on how such a creature could come all the way from Lapland, pulling Santa's sleigh.
This deer arrived on Christmas Day: a magnificent specimen of his kind. He pulled no sleigh; he didn't even fly through the night sky as the artists had portrayed. His hooves were firmly on the earth.
There was little glamour for the creature. The tinsel and fairy lights meant nothing to him. He was unaware that his coming was so apt.
Born and reared in the freedom of a Deer Park, he was a fine stag. As his antlers grew to full height, he carried in his heart the glory of soon leading a harem of slender does. Then came the rutting season. With much anguish battles raged, antlers clashed, and he lost. Running for his life his instinct told him that migration was the answer. Many red deer roamed the mountains to the East. Others had taken the same path moving from hill to hill until their destination was reached.
Nobody knows what brought this one off course, down into the valley. It may have been thirst, for a clear river runs there. For him it was a place of alien things; the cattle lowed and lumbered after the strange creature, the dogs barked, the men called to their friends to come and see.
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