Cernunnos

Cernunnos [L, the horned one]. An important (perhaps principal) god of the Continental Celts, a lord of nature, animals, fruit, grain, and prosperity. He is portrayed as having a man's body and the horns of a stag; his figure is seen in a squatting position, and he wears or carries the sacred torc often associated with the Continental Celts. Although his name is known from only one inscription (and is there partially obliterated, ‘—ernunnos’), the evidence for Cernunnos' widespread worship is impressive; he is, for example, portrayed on the Gundestrup Cauldron. More than thirty other representations survive, dispersed from what is today Romania to Ireland. There are convincing traces of him in the literary traditions of both Wales and Ireland; and in later illuminated manuscripts, figures evoking Cernunnos are symbolic of devilish and anti-Christian forces. The Breton pseudo-saint Korneli, a patron of horned creatures, also shows traces of Cernunnos. In Gaulish representation he has a ram-headed servant. Julius Caesar identified him with the Roman god Dis Pater. Later commentators have sought to link him with Conall Cernach and the Hindu Pashupati, a ‘lord of the beasts’. His posture has also been compared to that of Buddha, but it may only reflect the fact that Continental Celts squatted on the floor and did not use chairs.

Bibliography

See P. B. Bober , ‘Cernunnos: Origin and Transformation of a Celtic Divinity’, American Journal of Archaeology, 55 (1951), 13–51;
also the dissertation of Dorothea Kenny , ‘Cernunnos’(UCLA, 1975), Dissertation Abstracts, 36 (1975), 3016A.