Cernunnos

Cernunnos is a Celtic god whose representations were widespread in the ancient Celtic world. As a horned god, Cernunnos is associated with horned male animals, especially stags and the ram-headed snake; this and other attributes associate him with produce and fertility.

Origins

Cernunnos is known from archaeological sources such as inscriptions and depictions, to have been worshipped in Gaul, Northern Italy (Gallia Cisalpina) and parts of Britain. The earliest known probable depiction of Cernunnos was found at Val Camonica in Italy, dating from the 4th century BC, while the best known depiction is on the famous Gundestrup cauldron found on Jutland, dating to the 1st century BC. The Cauldron was likely to have been stolen by the Germanic Cimbri tribe or another tribe that inhabited Jutland as it is quite clearly from south east Europe (See the external link below).

In Gallo-Roman religion, his name is known from the "Pillar of the Boatmen" (Pilier des nautes), a monument now displayed in the Musée National du Moyen Age in Paris. It was constructed by Gaulish sailors in the early first century CE, from the inscription (CIL XIII number 03026) probably in the year 14, on the accession of the emperor Tiberius. It was found in 1710 in the foundations of the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris on the site of Lutetia, the civitas capital of the Celtic Parisii tribe. It depicts Cernunnos and other Celtic deities alongside Roman divinities such as Jupiter, Vulcan, Castor, and Pollux.

The Pilier des nautes provides the earliest written record of the deity's name. Additional evidence is given by two identical inscriptions on metal plaques from Seinsel-Rëlent in Luxembourg, in the territory of the Celtic Treveri tribe. These inscriptions (AE 1987, 0772) read Deo Ceruninco, "to the God Cerunincos". Lastly, a Gaulish inscription (RIG 1, number G-224) written in Greek letters from Montagnac (Hérault, Languedoc-Roussilion, France) reads αλλετ[ει]υος καρνονου αλ[ι]σο[ντ]εας thus giving the name "Carnonos".

While the exact relationships cannot be proven, Cernunnos-like deities exist in non-Celtic cultures: Pan of the Greeks, the Minotaur of the Minoans, and Pashupati, the Hindu Lord of the Animals, are all horned males associated with nature, animals, and the primordial wild. It is possible that all three entities have a common ancestral origin (a "monomyth"), although what this original image was and its parent culture has not yet been discovered. Nevertheless, the consistency in both representation and role is notable.

Of note is "The Sorcerer," a Paleolithic cave painting representing a therianthropic man with horns.^{[citation needed]} As it predates all known representations of Cernunnos, and the Indo-European cultures associated with him, by several thousand years, it cannot be called with certainty a progenitor image. It does, however, suggest that the idea of a Horned Man held ceremonial, magical, or religious significance as early as the Old Stone Age.^{[citation needed]}

Etymology

On the Parisii inscription [_]ernunnos, 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 that in Gaulish, carnon or cernon means "antler" or "horn" (Delmarre, 1987 pp. 106-107). Similarly cern means "horn" or "bumb, boss" in Old Irish and is etymologically related to similar words carn in Welsh and Breton. These derive from a Proto-Indo-European root *krno- which also gave the Latin cornu and Germanic *hurnaz (from which English "horn") (Nussbaum 1986) (Porkorny 1959 pp.574-576).

The same Gaulish root is found in the names of tribes such as the Carnutes, Carni, and Carnonacae and in the name of the Gaulish war trumpet, the carnyx. Therefore, the Proto-Celtic form of this theonym can be reconstructed as either *Cerno-on-os or *Carno-on-os, both meaning "great horned one". (The augmentative -on- is frequently, but not exclusively, found in theonyms, for example: Map-on-os, Ep-on-a, Matr-on-ae, Sir-on-a.)

Iconography

The depictions of Cernunnos are strikingly consistent throughout the Celtic world. His most distinctive attribute are his stag's horns, and he is usually portrayed as a mature man with long hair and a beard. He wears a torc, an ornate neck-ring used by the Celts to denote nobility. 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 which some have interpreted as meditative or shamanic, although it may only reflect the fact that the Celts squatted on the ground when hunting.

Cernunnos is nearly always portrayed with animals, in particular 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. He is associated with other beasts less frequently, including bulls (at Rheims), dogs and rats. Because of his frequent association with creatures, scholars often describe Cernunnos as the "Lord of the Animals" or the "Lord of Wild Things". Because of his association with stags (a particularly hunted beast) he is also described as the "Lord of the Hunt". Interestingly, 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 Rheims (Marne, Champagne, France) – in antiquity, Durocortorum, the civitas capital of the Remi tribe – and the stag vomiting coins from Niedercorn-Turbelslach (Luxembourg) in the lands of the Treveri.

Medieval traces

Traces of the god survived well into Christian times. The literary traditions of both Wales (he is clearly mentioned in the Mabinogion in the tale of the Lady of the Fountain) and Ireland contain allusions to him, while in Brittany the legendary saint Korneli (or Cornély) at Carnac has attributes of Cernunnos. It has also been suggested that the English legend of Herne the Hunter is an allusion to Cernunnos, though this seems doubtful as Herne is thought to be a survival of Saxon, rather than Celtic, beliefs and is first mentioned in 1597 in Shakespeare's play The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 4, Scene 4. It is, however, possible that Herne is a much-diluted incarnation of Cernunnos that was absorbed into the collective Saxon psyche.

The Giant of Cerne Abbas in Dorset, England is reputed to be a representation of Cernunnos. This is uncertain, as the image has also been attributed to Hercules and the Dagda. Most obviously, the giant lacks horns.

Neopaganism

Wicca

In Wicca, imagery derived from historical Celtic culture is sometimes used, including a depiction of Cernunnos, often referred to as The Horned God. The adherents generally follow a life-fertility-death cycle for Cernunnos, though his death is now usually set at Samhain, the Gaelic New Year Festival usually taking place on October 31. For more on this, see the main article.

Cernunnos in popular culture

In the fictional Warcraft universe there is a demi-god named Cenarius, who has the lower body of a stag and antlers atop his head. To the Night Elves he is the embodiment of nature.
In the computer role-playing game Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, one of the characters who may join the player's party is a Druid named Cernd. Being a Druid, Cernd is devoted to upholding the "balance" of Nature.
In .hack//G.U. The optional boss after you defeat the game is Cernunnos. In the game, this is a god which was resurrected by druid-like characters.
In the horror novella "The Horns of Evangelina," by Chuck Morgue, a Celtic-based representation of Cernunnos plays an important part in the pagan subplot of the story.
In the fantasy Deverry cycle of Katherine Kerr, the author mentions the deity by the name of Kerun. In her novel Dawnspell it appears once as a stag-god and a horned god and is described as an ancient and almost forgotten god of hunting.
On the popular television show Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Hercules encountered and fought the god after landing on the island of Eire during season five.
In The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay, Cernunnos is an important god in the world of Fionavar.
The band Faith and the Muse wrote a song about the fall of Cernnunos to modern religion.

References

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL) volume 13, number 03026
Delmarre, Xavier (2003) Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise (2nd ed.) Paris: Editions Errance. ISBN 2-87772-237-6
Lejeune, Michel (1995) Recueil des inscriptions gauloises (RIG) volume 1, Textes gallo-grecs. Paris: Editions du CNRS
Nussbaum, Alan J. (1986) Head and Horn in Indo-European, Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-010449-0
Porkorny, Julius (1959) Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch Berlin: Franke Verlag

External links

Gundestrup Cauldron
Cernunnos/Herne Image Gallery
Pretanic World The Horned God in Celtic Art, its Religious Symbolism and Modern Vestiges