Cernunnos - Lord of the Wild

Cernunnos was worshipped by the iron age Celts all across Europe as late as the first century AD, and his worship must have begun centuries before that.

The Celts had no written language of their own, and although their druids could write in Latin and Greek they were forbidden to write down any of their knowledge. The classical writers themselves never mentioned this particular Celtic divinity, and so we have nothing in writing about him at all. Everything we know about him can only be guessed at from the iconography: the images of him created by the Celts themselves.

The Celts made numerous models, or icons, of their various gods, and there are over 60 depicting Cernunnos, from all over Europe.

Cernunnos is one of the paradoxes of Celtic studies. The image of the cross-legged stag-horned deity with the ram-horned serpent is probably an archetypal image of a Celtic god. However this association of image and name comes from a single carved image discovered in Paris and generated by sailors from the Gallic Parisii tribe (from whom Paris got its name) in the 1st century CE, by which time Gaul (modern France) had become a Roman province. The earliest image of the same type that has, as yet, been found was carved on rock in Val Camonica, Northern Italy in the 4th century BCE. Even the interpretation of the name as Cernunnos was in doubt (the original inscription reading ERNUNNOS) until a second inscription representing the same name was found at Polenza, Italy. A variant of the name, Cernenus was discovered on an inscription at Verespatak, Rumania where he is equated with the Roman Jupiter..

Cornu is Latin for "horn" (the same root of the word CORNUcopia). The Romans had a habit of changing local names to fit the Roman pattern: most Roman names end in "us". So Cernunnos is a Roman name meaning Horned One. It was probably the new Romanised name given by the Gauls to all their very old horned gods, in which case its use may have been widespread through out Gaul after it became a Roman province.

The origins of the Celts are obscure, but it has been suggested that they lie far to the East around the Indo-European Plateau. If so, we should not be so surprised to find ancient gods there who might be cousins of our own local horned deity. This ancient image came from Mohenjo Daro, in the North-West of modern India on the River Indus, and is believed to have been made around 2,000 BC. It is thought to be the seated figure of a very early version of Pashupati, the Lord of the Animals in Hindu mythology, peacefully surrounded by his beasts.

The images of him are unusually consistent. His main attribute are his horns, those of a stag. He is usually portrayed as a mature man with long hair and a beard. He wears a torc: this was an ornate neck-ring worn by the Celts to denote nobility. He often carries other torcs in his hands or hanging from his horns.

Info from: [link] & [link]

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