Celtic Spirit God Cernunnos

Ancient Celtic Gods & Goddess

Cernunno

Cernunnos in Celtic religious beliefs and practices is the spirit God of horned animals, particularly of stags, a nature God of produce and fertility. His most distinctive attribute are his stag's horns, and he is usually portrayed as a mature man with long hair and a beard. Known as ‘The Horned God' or ‘Horned One' or ‘Peaked One,' one of a number of similar Gods to be found in many ancient cultures. From archaeological sources Cernunnos was known to have been worshipped in Gaul, Northern Italy and along the Southern Coast of Britain. The earliest iconography appeared in a rock carving in the 4^th century BC in Val Camonica in Northern Italy, accompanied by a ram horned snake bearing two Celtic torcs. The torcs were ornate neck rings which were an integral part of Celtic Culture, often denoting the social standing of the wearer, and role in society.He often carries other torcs in his hands or hanging from his horns, as well as a purse filled with coins. He is usually portrayed seated and cross- legged, in a position some have interpreted as meditative of Shamanic, although it may only reflect the fact that the Celts squatted on the ground when hunting. This iconography was a common feature in both Gaul and Britain. Bull and Goat horned heads are found in La Tene metalwork, La Tene, being the home of the Celtic decorations, covering Eastern France, Southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland in the 5^th century BC, which later spread throughout all the Celtic areas. He is also associated with a variety of animals both wild and domestic, and with fertility symbols, such as cornucopiae and bowls of grain or money.

The best known depiction is on the famous Gundestrup cauldron found in Jutland, in the 1^st century BC, which was     likely to have been stolen by the Germanic Cimbri tribe, or another tribe that inhabited Jutland, as its origins are clearly from South East Europe.

In Gallo-Roman religion Cerunnos is known from the ‘Pillar of Boatmen' a monument now displayed in the Musee National du Moyen Age in Paris, it was built in the early 1^st century AD by Gaulish sailors, dated from the inscription 14 AD the year of the accession of Roman Emperor Tiberius Claudius Nero. It was found in 1710 in the foundations of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, which was built on the site of Lutetia, the capital city of the Celtic Parisii Tribe. It depicts Cernunnos and other Celtic Gods alongside Roman Gods Jupiter, Vulcan, Castor, and Pollux. It provides the earliest written record of the God's name, later additional evidence is through two identical inscriptions on metal plaques from Seinsel-Relent in Luxembourg, the lands of the Celtic Treveri Tribe, the inscriptions read ‘to the God Cerunincos', and the inscription giving the name ‘Carnonos'.

On the Parisii inscription, the first letter of the name has been scraped off at some point, but can safely be restituted to ‘Cernunnos' because of the depiction of an antlered god below the name and the fact it is in Gaulish, carnon or cernon meaning ‘antler' or ‘horn'. Similarly cern means ‘horn' or ‘bump, boss' in Old Irish and is etymologically related to similar words carn in Welsh and Breton.

The idea of a horned god can be traced back long before Cecunincos to a Paleolithic cave painting representing a therianthropic man with horns, known as ‘The Sorcerer,' from an Indo-European Culture predating all known representations by several thousand years, and suggests the idea of a Horned Man held ceremonial, magical, or early religious significance as early as the Old Stone Age.

The ‘Horned God' has always be a uniting force in the early Nature Sites of the Shaman, Celtic, Druid, Wicca,            Hindu,    Greek, religions, spirit worlds, faiths, and although suppressed by the Christian Churches down the ages, have survived, to be found in new age and spiritual sites, as we look again for a greater affinity with nature and the environs and to the many other representations to be found in our History of the Ancients.

Other Horned gods will appear on our site later, The Welsh Caerwiden, the English Herne the Hunter, the Minotaur of the Minoans,  Pashupati The Hindu Lord of The Animals, the Greek Pan, and later British Folk Figures; Puck, Robin Goodfellow, and The Green Man.

The suppression by the Christian Church, was due to the association with Saton, developed in the fashionable 19^th century Occultist circles in England and France, and the illustration of Baphomet, in Eliphas Levi's ‘Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie 1855, the symbolism being drawn from the ‘Diable' Tarot of Marseille Card of the 17^th and 18^th centuries; a bat winged horned and hoofed figure with female breasts, perched on a globe. In levis illustration he had added the caduceus of Mercury at his groin, moved the flaming torch to crown his head and had him gesture towards lunar crescents above and below.

Levi always contested this was not an evil figure, but a representation of the God of the Old World, who had been driven underground and condemned as a figure of witchcraft by the hostile Christianity of the time.

The depiction of Satan as a horned and hoofed goat like monster holding a trident was a 19^th century invention, was made popular in response to the growing popularity of the Greek God Pan in art and literature, by the Christian Church. Previous depictions of The Devil were simply a goat, a dog, a man dressed in black, when depicted as an animal/human figure The Devil often had bat's wings, the talons of a bird of prey, and so on.

The Horned God does not share Satan's attributes either; while the Christian Satan is described as a fallen angel and is essentially evil, the pagan Horned God is believed to be a force of nature, neither entirely benevolent nor entirely malevolent; In his role as Father, he is said to give life, but in his role as Hunter, he is also is also said to take life, in what is seen as a great and eternal cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, he sometimes carried a bow. 

Other figures such as Aleister Crowley and Margaret Murray took up this suggestion and blended it with an adaptation of cultural anthropologies, such as that of James Frazer. Where James Frazer saw modern folklore and folk customs as the echoes of forgotten agricultural rituals, authors such as Murray and other members of the ‘Folklore Society' saw an esoteric fertility cult, a secret tradition driven underground and suppressed by Christianity. Margaret Murray suggested that Christian reports of witches meeting in the woods with Satan, were actually pagans with their priest wearing a horned helmet to invoke their Horned God.

These themes shaped the modern concept of the Horned God revered by some neo pagan groups today.

Sacred horned or antlered animals that signalled the numinous presence of a God were ubiquitous in the ancient      world, and certain scholars have criticised worshippers who blur ‘the very important distinctions between a God named, described, represented , and worshipped in animal form, a real animal worshipped as a God, animal symbols and animal masks in the cult, and finally the consecrated animal destined for sacrifice.' Many sacred bulls and goats, sacred stags and ibexes serve as examples. Not all Horned Gods and their priests were male; Astarte and Isis, for example were sometimes depicted with horns.

The Horned God is associated with the woods, wild animals, and hunting. He is often also associated with sexuality or male virility. As a symbol of sexuality, The Horned God represents one of the most elemental forces in Nature, and is therefore complementary to female fertility, Gods known collectively as the Great Mother.

The Horned God is always portrayed with horns or antlers, which are his distinguishing feature. The God's horns are considered symbols of male potency, strength and protection. Sometimes they are seen in a sense as phallic symbols. The horn has been a religious symbol for thousands of years. An altar made entirely of stag horns was built in the temple of Apollo at Delos, and temples to the Goddess Diana usually contained horns as well. The horn is also seen as a symbol of fruitfulness and bounty, as in the Horn of Plenty.

He is often portrayed with an erect phallus. The phallus is itself a symbol of the power to create life. Another symbol of his sexual prowess and virility is the occasional presence of cloven hoofs or the hindquarters of a goat. The goat itself is considered a symbol of sexuality.

It is worth noting that the wizard Merlin was also sometimes associated with the Horned God, perhaps due to an older origin before the two developed their eventual and individual identities. He was often seen in the company of stags, and himself was sometimes described with stag like attributes. Furthermore, in at least one account he interrupted a wedding by riding intothe assemblage on top of a great stag, drunk and very belligerent.  

Cernunnos is nearly always portrayed with animals, particularly the stag, he is also frequently associated with a unique beast that seems to belong primarily to him, a serpent with the horns of a ram. This creature may have been a deity in its own right. Cernunnos is also associated with other beasts less frequently, including bulls, at Reims, dogs and rats. Because of the frequent association with creatures, he is often described as ‘The Lord of the Animals' or ‘The Lord of Wild Things.' Because of his association with stags, he is also described as ‘The Lord of the Hunt'. The Pilier des nautes links him with sailors and with commerce, suggesting that he was also associated with material wealth as does the coin pouch from the Cernunnos of Reims, previously none as Durocortorum, the capital of the Remi Tribe, and the stag vomiting coins from Niederercorn Turbelslach, Luxembourg in the lands of the Treveri.

Traces of the god survived well into Christian Times. In Wales he is clearly mentioned in ‘Mabinogion' in the tale of ‘The Lady of the Fountain, and in Ireland there are may allusions to him, and in Brittany the legendary Saint Korneli, or Cornely, at Carnac has attributes to him, it is also thought the English ‘Legend of Herne the Hunter' is based on Cernunnos, although of Saxon origin, not Celtic, the story of Cernunnos was carried forward into the Saxon, and is mentioned in Shakespeare's play of 1597 ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor Act 4 Scene 4

The Giant of Cerne Abbas in Dorset England is attributed to Cernunnos, it is also attributed to Hercules and the Dagda, unfortunately the giant has no horns.

The belief in the Horned God became practically extinct in the 19^th century, but was kept alive in the Neo Pagan and Wiccan Beliefs, and now plays a prominent position in the revival, but more in phallic symbolism, merged with elements of Pan, following the natural cycle of life fertility- death cycle, his death is now set at Samhain,  the Gaelic New Year Festival of around October 31^st.

In Wicca ‘The Horned God' is the partner or son of the Great Mother, or Triple Goddess, often described as the 'Lord' and the ‘Lady' and are the ancient Tribal Gods of this Faith. In modern Wicca he is often described as ‘The Great God' or ‘The Great Father' who seeds the goddess and then dies during the Autumn and Winter months, and is reborn in the Spring.

Far more details of the Wicca Beliefs will be on a separate later. Pan mythology will also appear later on a separate site.

A stone relief of a hunter with a dog and a stag, along with an Iron Age votive pit containing human remains and the bones of a red deer was discovered whilst the foundations of a Romano-Celtic Temple of the mid 2^nd century AD were being excavated on the site of one of the largest Roman villas in Britain at Chedworth  near the important Roman Towns of Gloucester and Cirencester in Gloucestershire in England. The complex was based around a Spring fed pool, the basis for so many of the spiritual sites, a special site used by the ancients, so it should not be surprised that evidence of Cernunnos should have been discovered there.