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Lumberwoods
U N N A T U R A L   H I S T O R Y   M U S E U M
“  T H E   P L A I D   F A I R Y   B O O K  ”
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Dare, like Roanoke before her, disappeared.
    Stranger still was the appearance of a singular white doe. The particular animal became the choice mark of many daring hunters, all of whom could not come close to procuring this rare prize. Time went on, as so often it does, and the white doe continued to elude the most skillful among huntsmen. However, early one morning, a learned elder was induce to admit that the white doe could only be slain by a silver arrow.
    Now, fortune favors who fortune favors, sometimes the bold, other times the lucky or clever. In this story it is the patient. For here reenters the young admirer, Manteo (son), who readily took up the trail of the curious specimen. Manteo (son) awaited the return of Virginia Dare, having heard tell that she ventured off over to another tribe for a spell. With fabled silver arrow in hand, Manteo (son) was intent to prove his worth with the fullness of his heart. He scoured the wild wood carefully inspecting every pass and ridge with rigor and zeal.
    Several suns came and went, until at last, there the white doe stood, drinking over by the lake shore. Manteo (son), with great precision, took hold of his bow, with careful aim, he fired the projectile. Over the thickets and briars the silver dart flew. In a moment’s time, forever though it seemed, it raced until it met the heart of the noble animal. Manteo (son) watched the arrow plunge, the creature lose its foothold and return to the earth. However, upon inspection of its final resting place, Manteo (son) found no X
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white doe. Rather, he stumbled upon a sight agasp for words. There would be no hero’s welcome. No triumphant return, no trophy for the hunter, nor token for his beloved. For rather than the white doe, Manteo (son), with heavy heart, carried back only the lifeless body of his dearest. Time revealing that the white doe and Virginia Dare were one in the same, the maiden having been transformed after rejecting the hand of a sorcerer, or so the story goes.
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“The tradition of a white doe and a silver arrow has survived through three centuries, and not only lingers where the events occurred, but some portions of it are found wherever in our land forests abound and deer abide. From Maine to Florida lumbermen are everywhere familiar with an old superstition that to see a white doe is an evil omen. In some localities lumbermen will quit work if a white deer is seen. That such a creature as a white deer really exists is demonstrated by their capture and exhibition in menageries, and to-day the rude hunters of the Allegheny Mountains believe that only a silver arrow will kill a white deer.”
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