Cernunnos, Antlered god (Lord of the Animals)
God and guardian of the animal realm, Cernunnos' authority is heralded by wearing the antlers of the deer. He provides sustenance and protection for the animals under his care. His qualities are generosity and magnanimity.
Invoking the Qualities of Generosity and Magnanimity.
As Lord of the Animals, Cernunnos provides refuge, sustenance, and well- being for the animals of the great forests of Europe. Majestically portrayed on the Gundestrup Cauldron, the antlered Cernunnos sits cross-legged on the ground next to a great stag. Cernunnos also appears intimately allied with the mother goddesses, carrying cornucopiae and offering bowls of fruit and grain to animals. The sovereign Cernunnos signifies generosity and magnanimity toward those he protects.
As early as the fourth century B.C., Cernunnos appears in rock drawings from the Camonica Valley of northern Italy. Cernunnos's authority is heralded by his great antlers, signifying his lordship among the animals of the forest of Europe. Through the centuries, his symbols - antlers of a great stag, Celtic jewelry called torcs, and the ram-horned snake remained remarkably consistent. Drawn on cave walls by Iron Age Celts, he appears robed and standing, and arrayed with great antlers, torcs on both arms, and a ram-horned snake at his side. On the Gundestrup Cauldron, Cernunnos's portrayal is regal: he sits cross-legged on the ground like a hunter, grasping a tore in one hand and a ram-horned snake against his face in the other. He is surrounded by a bull, hound, boar, and otherworldly animals. A stag with identical antlers stands beside him, as though mirroring his image as an animal.
Extending his sovereignty to include imagery usually associated with the mother goddesses, Roman-Celtic statues of Cernunnos show him carrying abundant cornucopias, feeding animals, and offering grain or coins from a bag.'' Like the mother goddess, also common at this time, Cernunnos extends his protection to include the growth of crops and the health and well-being of animals and humans alike.
His best-known image comes from Lady Charlotte Guest's rendering of "The Lady of the Fountain," included in her translation of the Mabinogion. Cernunnos appears as the potent Lord of the Animals:
"Sleep here tonight, and in the morning arise early, and take the road upwards through the valley until thou ... comest to a large sheltered glade with a mound in the centre. And thou wilt see a black man of great stature on the top of the mound. He is not smaller than two men of this world. He has but one foot, and one eye in the middle of his forehead. And he has a club of iron. .. . And he is not a comely man, but on the contrary he is exceedingly ill favoured; and he is the Woodward of that wood.
And thou wilt see a thousand wild animals grazing all around him....
And the next morning I arose ... and proceeded straight through the valley to that wood.... And there was I three times more astonished at the number of wild animals.... And the black man was there, sitting upon the top of the mound. Huge of stature as the man had told me....
Then I asked him what power he had over the animals.... And he took his club in his hand, and with it he struck a stag so great a blow that it brayed vehemently, and at his braying the animals came together, as numerous as the stars in the sky, so that it was difficult for me to find room in the glade to stand among them. There were serpents, and dragons and divers sorts of animals. And [the black man] looked at them, and bade them go and feed; and they bowed their heads, and did him homage as vassals to their lord."
Generosity comes from confidence and magnanimity from strength, an inner knowledge that life will always be filled up and replenished anew. More and more, your actions are spontaneous and unaffected. By responding to the needs of others unselfconsciously, you are participating in the natural urge of creation to increase in generosity and love.
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