Horned God
The Horned God is a modern
syncretic term used amongst
Wiccan-influenced
Neopagans, which unites numerous male
nature gods out of such widely-dispersed and historically unconnected
mythologies as the
Celtic Cernunnos, the
Welsh Caerwiden, the
English Herne the Hunter, the
Hindu Pashupati, the
Greek Pan and the
satyrs, and even the
Paleolithic cave painting
"the Sorcerer" in the
Cave of the Three Brothers in France.
A number of related British folk figures have been incorporated as well:
Puck,
Robin Goodfellow, and the
Green Man.
|
Eliphas Levi's illustration of Baphomet, in his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, 1855, accompanied the first modern suggestion of an ancient horned god driven underground by the spread of Christianity. |
The idea that all such horned images were of deities and that they represented manifestations of a single Horned God, and that
Christianity had attempted to suppress his worship by associating him with
Satan, developed in the fashionable 19th-century
Occultist circles of England and France.
Eliphas Levi's famous illustration (
right) of
Baphomet in his
Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1855) accompanied the first suggestions to this effect. Levi's image of "Baphomet" is reflected in most depictions of the Devil made since. Symbolism is drawn from the
Diable card of the 17th and 18th century
Tarot of Marseille: the bat-winged, horned and hoofed figure with female
breasts, perched upon a globe; Levi added the
caduceus of Mercury at his groin, moved the flaming torch to crown his head and had him gesture towards
lunar crescents above and below.
This was not an evil figure, Levi contended, but a god of the old world, driven underground and condemned as a figure of witchcraft by hostile Christianity. Figures such as
Aleister Crowley and
Margaret Murray took up this suggestion and blended it with an adaptation of
cultural anthropologies such as that of
James Frazer. Where Frazer saw modern folklore and folk customs as the echoes of forgotten agricultural rituals, authors such as Murray and other members of the
Folklore Society saw an esoteric fertility cult, a secret tradition driven underground and suppressed by Christianity. Margaret Murray suggested that Christian reports of witches meeting in the woods with Satan were actually pagans with their priest wearing a horned helmet to invoke their Horned God (Murray 1921). These themes shaped the modern concept of the Horned God revered by some neopagan groups today.
Sacred horned or antlered animals that signalled the numinous presence of a deity were ubiquitous in the ancient world, and certain scholars have criticised worshippers who blur "the very important distinctions between a god named, described, represented, and worshipped in animal form, a real animal worshipped as a god, animal symbols and animal masks in the cult, and finally the consecrated animal destined for sacrifice." (Burkert 1985 p 64). Many
sacred bulls and goats,
sacred stags and ibexes serve as examples. Not all horned gods and their priests were male;
Astarte and
Isis (borrowing an attribute from
Hathor), for example, were sometimes depicted with horns.
*
Burkert, Walter,
Greek Religion 1985.
*
Frazer, James,
The Golden Bough*
Murray, Margaret,
God of the Witches 1933.
*Murray, Margaret,
The Witch-Cult in Western Europe 1921.
The Horned God is associated with
woods,
wild animals, and
hunting. He is often also associated with
sexuality or
male virility. As a symbol of sexuality, the Horned God represents one of the most elemental forces in Nature, and is therefore complementary to female fertility deities known collectively as the
Great Mother.
Another name for the Horned God is The Hunter. He is a symbol not only of the giving of life, but the taking of life too, in what is seen as a great and eternal cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. He sometimes carries a bow.
The Horned God is always portrayed with
horns or
antlers, which are of course his distinguishing feature. The God's horns are considered symbols of male potency, strength and protection. Sometimes they are seen in a sense as
phallic symbols. The horn has been a religious symbol for thousands of years. An altar made entirely of
stag horns was built in the temple of
Apollo at
Delos, and temples to the Goddess
Diana usually contained horns as well. The horn is also seen as a symbol of fruitfulness and bounty, as in the
Horn of Plenty.
He is often portrayed with an erect
phallus. The phallus is itself a symbol of the power to create life. Another symbol of his sexual prowess and virility is the occasional presence of
cloven hoofs or the hindquarters of a
goat. The goat itself is considered a symbol of sexuality.
It is worth noting that the wizard
Merlin was also sometimes associted with the Horned God, perhaps due to an older origin before the two developed their eventual and individual identities. He was often seen in the company of
stags, and himself was sometimes described with stag-like attributes. Futhermore, in at least one account he interrupted a wedding by riding into the assemblage atop a great
stag, drunk and very belligerent.
During the rise of
Christianity, a depiction of
Satan as a horned and hoofed goat-like monster holding a
trident, adopted from Greek
Pan, became popular. By adopting the image of the Horned God and transforming it into an image of the
Devil, the Christian church implied that
paganism was
evil. The similarity does not extend beyond the image, of course; while
Judeo-Christian Satan is described as a fallen angel and essentially evil, the pagan Horned God is believed to be a force of nature, neither entirely benevolent nor entirely malevolent: In his role as Father, he is said to give life, but in his role as Hunter, he is also said to take life. Positive aspects of the Horned God are re-attributed to Satan by the
Church of Satan and similar branches of modern
Satanism.
Belief in and worship of the Horned God waned almost to extinction by the
19th century, although vestiges remained in local customs, particularly in the countryside. Ghost stories of
Herne the Hunter and reverence of
St. Cornus would be the strongest pre-wiccan remnants of the Horned God. He makes a late appearance in art referred to in the moonlit last act of
Verdi's final opera,
Falstaff.
Gerald Gardner began
Wicca in
England as what he saw as a revival of ancient
Pagan worship, focused on the duality of the Great God and the Great Mother. It should be noted, however, that Wicca is little based on historical findings and is mixture of many influences from Gardner's time, instead of being a reconstruction of any one culture or religion. Today
Wicca and other
Neopagan religions claim about 1,000,000 adherents.
In modern
Wicca, "The Horned God" can refer to any of these individually, or to the universal archetype Wiccans believe they represent. In this context, he is sometimes referred to as the "Great God" or the "Great Father". He impregnates the Goddess, and then dies during the autumn and winter months and is reborn in spring, while the Goddess lives on always as Mother Earth, giving life to the Horned God as he goes through the eternal cycle of life, death, and rebirth.
*
Horned helmet*
Gundestrup cauldron*Juliette Wood, "The Celtic Tarot and the Secret Traditions: A Study in Modern Legend Making":
Folklore, Vol. 109, 1998
*
Walter Burkert,
Greek Religion 1977 (1985) Cambridge:Harvard University Press)
*
The Horned God in India and Europe.
