The Horned God

From Pashupati to Cernunnos to Pachacamac

NAME: Horned God: some of who's names are Cernunnos, Pashupati, Pan, Puck, Pachacamac, Lord of the Winter, Hu Gadarn, and Belatucadros among who knows how many others. SYMBOLS: Horns ether set like Pan or Puck, or antlers like Cernunnos or Pashupati. For Pan the syrinx or reed pipes. Curnunnos the Torc (female symbol) & Ram-headed snake (male symbol.) USUAL IMAGE: A well formed human male figure who's head bears antlers, or in the case of Pan fixed horns and in the case of Pan fixed horns and the legs of a goat. HOLY BOOKS: N/A HOLY DAYS: The Winter Solstice (his birth), Spring (his marriage), Summer Solstice (his death) Though this does differ with other versions and traditions PLACE OF WORSHIP: The Wild. RELATIVES: The Goddess. DETAILS: Referring to the Horned God in the singular is perhaps a silly thing to do. There are many male deities that have as one of their aspects the possession of horns. They can be found all over the world under dozens if not hundreds of names. Though all are separate entities from different and diverse people there is, I think, enough in common to look at them as a whole. Some of these Horned Gods are: Pashupati: This was the deer-horned god and Lord of the Animals of Northern India some 6000 years ago in what is now Pakistan. Little is known about the civilization that gave rise to the city of Magenjo Daro, even less about the God of the region other than some images found in area. Pan: Here we find not an antlered god but one with permanent fixed horns. Son of Hermes and Penelope (at least in some of the myths) Pan was never really much like by the other Greek deities. The god of flocks, woods, shepherds and the sources of the unreasoning fear that overtakes some people when confronted with the Wild that was given his na;me and called panic. He would in later years be turned, in part , into the Christian god Satan, a character whom at no point in the Bible is ever described as being horned. Poor Pan, for once being the kidnapped one here, had this role fostered on him by monks who were familiar not with the panic of the wildwoods, but with a different fear, that of the seriously and unhealthy sexually repressed.

Cernunnos: While many today think of this God as THE Horned God that may in fact be a misnomer, as it is doubtful that there was ever a group of people who referred to him by this name. Cernunnos, by whatever names he was really called was the antlered God of the people now known as France. And there was, by no means only one Horned God in the area! His image has also been found as far away as Denmark. Cernunnos, which comes from the Latin for horn, is the God who stands at the gateway of life and death and alternates with the Goddess in ruling over life and death. Seen as the God of fertility, life, animals wealth and the Underworld he is continually born, and dies returning year after year. Puck & Others: In the British Isles, home of the Druid's horned Hu Gadarn, and the horned warrior god Belatucadros the Shining One, the the Horned God eventually came to be known as Puck or Robin Goodfellow as well as the legend of Herne the Hunter and the Green Man. No longer a god but not a being that could be gotten rid of ether. An echo of the Horned God is also perhaps found in the Arthurian legends in figure of the Green Knight and in Caer Bannuac or Castle of Carbonek the "Horned Castle" that was found to be the abode of the Holy Grail. Pachacamac: However it is not only in Asia and Europe that the Horned God is found. In Pre-Colombian Peru we find the horned son of the Sun Pachacamac, God of life and death he is the diety of light, volcanic fires and like his far removed brothers was said to stand at the gateway between live and death. Further North in the land that would one day be the American Southeast the Indians have tales not of a horned God, but of great horned snakes. Large enough to swallow a man whole they also possess deer antlers, and sometimes a great gem with healing properties that was lodged between these antlers. Modern: There are still new versions of the Horned God coming about today, such as Philip Jose Farmer's John Stagg in the novel Flesh or the Forrest King in Princess Mononoke. As in the past examples, to name only a few. These are only a few of the Horned Gods that are found the world over. A personificaton of early man's envy of the far mightier beasts that were a part of his daily life? Or perhaps a powerful part of our Universal Unconscious that has come though in a endless number of different forms and is still being expressed anew that is still as powerful as it ever was?