The animal itself
Antlers are shed and regrown every year, the fastest growing tissue of any mammal, up to 2.5 cm a day. The animal deliberately loses its weapon each winter and rebuilds it.1 of 2 calendars · 90 searches a month
Stag
The stag is read as starting again after a clearance. It appears in one of the two birth calendars we cover. The two are presented online as interchangeable, yet they name the same animal on only 17 days of 365 — 4.7% of the year.
Which calendar assigns it, and when
Celtic calendar
24 December – 20 January
Its tree
Birch
Only the Celtic calendar assigns this one. Anyone born in these dates gets a different animal from the other system — the two agree on 4.7% of days →
What it stands for, and where that came from
Starting again after a clearance — authority that is regrown rather than held.
Honoured in: Celtic and Norse royal symbol; the stag on the Gundestrup cauldron.
Counted across all 39 animals
Where the stag sits
22/39
animals here carry a birth-date range. The other 17 are symbols
people choose, not ones a date assigns.
4.7%
of the year — 17 days out of 365 —
is where the two calendars name the same animal. The rest of the time they
disagree.
28th
most looked-up of the 39 animals we cover.
Both calendars are published online as though interchangeable. They are not, and the disagreement is the reason two sites can give you different animals for the same birthday. How the two calendars differ →
Searched about as often
Stag is ranked 28 of 39 by search demand. Of all 39 animals here, 22 sit in one of the two birth-date calendars and 17 are searched as symbols only.