The Great White Hart

Inspired by Take This Cup by Bodie and Brock Theone "Suddenly the heads of the herd rose in one motion and turned towards the copse of trees beyond the thicket. The herd parted slightly, giving me a clear view to the wood. There, in the midst of the trees, stood the Great White Hart-master, father, and king of the deer. He had a pure white bib on his chest, with a buff mantle like a cape across his broad back. Antlers were so wide they nearly touched the trunks of two trees. I could not count the points of his antlers. There were too many. But there, in the center, was a curious pattern. The intersection of branches formed a perfect cross. I had heard stories of the Great White Hart as the shepherds sat around the campfire. He was real enough. He had been spotted two years earlier and been tracked but never found. "Aye," the shepherds had exclaimed . "He's one of those who lived in Paradise with Adam afore it was sealed up. He escaped and lives on still in this land....They say the hart's waitin' for the Messiah to come and redeem the broken world and open up the gates of Eden. Legend has it that he carried the sign of the Messiah on him, but what that sign might be, no one knows" I had dreamed of the majestic creature. Few had ever seen him. He was a legend of the mountains where Eden had once been. He had boarded the ark in the days of Noah but returned this place after the flood. No human but Adam and Noah had ever come close enough to touch him. Until now" - Take This Cup, Chapter 5, pages 50-51.