The gate of the year

4) Relief on a silver plate of the god Cernunnos, detail of the Gundestrup Cauldron, a silver vessel dating to the II century A.D., discovered in 1891 in a peat bog in Jutland, Northern Denmark, and now housed in the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen. The vessel is made by thirteen engraved plates, with representations of Celtic divinities and cult performances.
Cernunnos was a Celtic deity, usually represented as a human figure with deer antlers, whose name is known from the inscription found on the Pillar of the Boatmen, a votive monument erected by the guild of sailors (nautae Parisiaci) in the city of Lutetia, the ancient Paris, during the I century A.D. The image on the Denmark cauldron shows him surrounded by several wild animals, as evidence of his function as divinity of the woodlands, Lord of the animals, of cattle and also of the sea animals (it is shown a human being riding a fish). In his right hand he holds a torque, a twisted metal neck-ring, an ornament typical of the Celts, which the god wears also on his neck, as probable symbol of wealth. In the other hand the god holds a long serpent with ram horns, a strange hybrid of reptile and quadruped which seems to be a characteristic attribute of this divinity, perhaps a symbol alluding to the Underworld (the serpent), regarded as source of abundance, wealth and fertility (the ram). Cernunnos was probably believed to be the Lord of both wild and domestic animals and bringer of abundance. The deer antlers seem to refer both to the fighting strength and to the sexual potency of the animal, and to symbolize the seasonal cycle of death and rebirth of nature. The antlers were in fact subjected to a yearly renewal: they fall at the beginning of spring and grows again during the summer of each year (Duval 1976, p. 46-48).
A heir of this woodland divinity was probably the folkloric figure of Herne the Hunter, who hanged himself on a oak tree and since then was obliged to roam in the forest of Windsor, in which he died, under the appearance of a spirit with deer antlers on his head. He turns up in Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor:

“There is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter, Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest, Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight, Walk round about an oak, with great ragged horns; And there he blasts the tree and takes the cattle And makes milch-kine yield blood and shakes a chain In a most hideous and dreadful manner” (Act IV, Scene IV).

Evidently, with the Christianization process, this figure had been demonized, and, from the bringer of abundance and fertility, he has become a malevolent maker of misfortune, diseases and sterility.

[Image: http://paganlayman.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/gundestrup-cauldron/]




Human-Animal Transformation

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4) Relief on a silver plate of the god Cernunnos, detail of the Gundestrup Cauldron, a silver vessel dating to the II century A.D., discovered in 1891 in a peat bog in Jutland, Northern Denmark, and now housed in the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen. The vessel is made by thirteen engraved plates, with representations of Celtic divinities and cult performances. Cernunnos was a Celtic deity, usually represented as a human figure with deer antlers, whose name is known from the inscription found on the Pillar of the Boatmen, a votive monument erected by the guild of sailors (nautae Parisiaci) in the city of Lutetia, the ancient Paris, during the I century A.D. The image on the Denmark cauldron shows him surrounded by several wild animals, as evidence of his function as divinity of the woodlands, Lord of the animals, of cattle and also of the sea animals (it is shown a human being riding a fish). In his right hand he holds a torque, a twisted metal neck-ring, an ornament typical of the Celts, which the god wears also on his neck, as probable symbol of wealth. In the other hand the god holds a long serpent with ram horns, a strange hybrid of reptile and quadruped which seems to be a characteristic attribute of this divinity, perhaps a symbol alluding to the Underworld (the serpent), regarded as source of abundance, wealth and fertility (the ram). Cernunnos was probably believed to be the Lord of both wild and domestic animals and bringer of abundance. The deer antlers seem to refer both to the fighting strength and to the sexual potency of the animal, and to symbolize the seasonal cycle of death and rebirth of nature. The antlers were in fact subjected to a yearly renewal: they fall at the beginning of spring and grows again during the summer of each year (Duval 1976, p. 46-48). A heir of this woodland divinity was probably the folkloric figure of Herne the Hunter, who hanged himself on a oak tree and since then was obliged to roam in the forest of Windsor, in which he died, under the appearance of a spirit with deer antlers on his head. He turns up in Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor: “There is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter, Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest, Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight, Walk round about an oak, with great ragged horns; And there he blasts the tree and takes the cattle And makes milch-kine yield blood and shakes a chain In a most hideous and dreadful manner” (Act IV, Scene IV). Evidently, with the Christianization process, this figure had been demonized, and, from the bringer of abundance and fertility, he has become a malevolent maker of misfortune, diseases and sterility. [Image: http://paganlayman.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/gundestrup-cauldron/]