Friday, February 01, 2013

Cernunnos

I've been reading a lot about Cernunnos lately.  He's supposedly the god of a whole bunch of stuff, such as hunting, nature, fertility, wealth, the underworld, etc.,  but I think most of that has been added on later, and isn't part of his original nature.  I think he is the god of business, of the male side of what it takes to make our way in the world.  Here's my rationale:

First, let me cover why I don't think he's the god of some of the above areas:

Not the god of the underworld.  I think he's currently associated with the underworld because of his horns, and because the Christian image of the devil has horns.  I'm not sure where the Christian image of the devil comes from, but it could result from an attempt to vilify the horned gods of other religions, such as Pan, or maybe even Cernunnos.

Not the god of fertility.  I think this idea comes from the fact that his antlers look like stag antlers (in most pictures), and stags are seen as being very virile.  However, most of the ancient pictures that I've seen of him don't have a phallus, and that seems pretty necessary if you're going to be a god of fertility.

Not the god of nature.  One of the oldest pictures of something that could be a forerunner of the Celtic Cernunnos is the Sorcerer cave painting in Trois-Frères, Ariège, France.  When this was made, around 12,000 to 13,000 BC, nature was all around us.  Just because objects of nature surround him in a lot of the old pictures doesn't mean he is the god of nature, he's just being surrounded by objects that were common at that time.  It's only when we look at those pictures from our time that he seems to be a god of nature.

That leaves hunting and wealth.  At the time that Cernunnos was worshipped, hunting was business, and if he was wealthy, then that means he was good at business, this is why I think he was more the god of business than anything else.  In the Sorcerer image referred to above, he is disguised as a stag.  This could be as a kind of magic to ensure a good hunt, or it could be that hunters at that time often disguised themselves as their prey in order to get closer to them and get a better shot.  This is basically re-making one's self to do well in business.  I have to become more political and more tactful to succeed in my business.  I also have to take an interest in things that I might not otherwise be interested in.  I have to re-make myself to be the type of person who does well in business, and that's what the Sorcerer, and by extension Cernunnos, does as well.  He is the god of doing whatever it takes to get food on the plate, to bring home whatever is needed for the family, and the tribe, to succeed.  He is the god of business.

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