The gate of the year

Bronze statuette of Gallo-Roman age (I century A.D.) representing a cock, now in the Archaeological Museum (Museo Archeologico Regionale), Aosta, Italy.
The cock was an animal mainly associated with the god Mercury, the Romanized form of several local divinities of Gaul, who assumed the characteristics and attributes of the Roman god. Mercury was, according to Caesar (Gallic War, VI, 17), the deity most worshipped by the Celts. Chickens and geese have been found repeatedly in tombs of the Celtic period, suggesting their function as offerings and perhaps guides for the dead. It seems that the cock’s power to announce the light of the sun turned it into a kind of intermediary between the night and day, between the darkness and light, and thus a mediator between life and death, the world of the living and the world of the dead. Furthermore, its crow was regarded as having an oracular function (the animal was able to foresee the rising of the sun) and was deemed capable of forewarn unexpected dangers.
In the Germanic world, the golden cock VíðóÞnir was perched on the top of the World Tree, Yggdrasil. The color of its plumage recalled the bright of the sun and of the lightning during a thunderstorm. It watched, from above the tree, over all that occurred in the world, and with its crow announced the coming of sunrise and the appearance of the sun light. It was interpreted as a symbol of vital power and regeneration.

[Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/archeo-metallurgie/8610375275/]




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Bronze statuette of Gallo-Roman age (I century A.D.) representing a cock, now in the Archaeological Museum (Museo Archeologico Regionale), Aosta, Italy. The cock was an animal mainly associated with the god Mercury, the Romanized form of several local divinities of Gaul, who assumed the characteristics and attributes of the Roman god. Mercury was, according to Caesar (Gallic War, VI, 17), the deity most worshipped by the Celts. Chickens and geese have been found repeatedly in tombs of the Celtic period, suggesting their function as offerings and perhaps guides for the dead. It seems that the cock’s power to announce the light of the sun turned it into a kind of intermediary between the night and day, between the darkness and light, and thus a mediator between life and death, the world of the living and the world of the dead. Furthermore, its crow was regarded as having an oracular function (the animal was able to foresee the rising of the sun) and was deemed capable of forewarn unexpected dangers. In the Germanic world, the golden cock VíðóÞnir was perched on the top of the World Tree, Yggdrasil. The color of its plumage recalled the bright of the sun and of the lightning during a thunderstorm. It watched, from above the tree, over all that occurred in the world, and with its crow announced the coming of sunrise and the appearance of the sun light. It was interpreted as a symbol of vital power and regeneration. [Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/archeo-metallurgie/8610375275/]