presented at 2006 symposium of Societas Celtologica Nordica held in Helsinki

Remarks on three figures of Cernunnos

ABSTRACT
The purse held by the antlered god, usually identified with Cernunnos, of the
bas-relief from Vendoeuvres, contains life embryos rather than coins, since the two
boys standing on snakes at both sides of him are cupids involved in the generation
of life.
Analogously, the round discs flowing out from the bag placed on the knees of
Cernunnos in a monument from Reims, are not coins, but life embryos, since they
flow between a bull and a deer symbolizing the reproduction of life. In fact
Cernunnos echoes the Bronze Age great god conceived as Creator-Destroyer and
ruler over the universal cycles.
Many clues drive us to suggest that Mercury’s purse too contains embryos
rather than money. The Apollonian god with the lyre associated with Mercury and
Cernunnos on the monument of Reims is a redeemer of souls. Playing the lyre, he
can appease the griffins protecting the mysterious substance of life.
On other monuments a pàtera containing round disks, as well as the circle
containing cupmarks on the petroglyphs, alludes to the reproductive power.
The squatting posture in which Cernunnos is represented alludes to his weak
legs which can be transformed into the coils of a snake (Corfinium monument).
The Latin Saturn, the Germanic Njōrdhr and the Welsh Math, who are chthonian
gods of reproduction like Cernunnos, have analogous leg impediments.

Remarks on three figures of Cernunnos

 Fig. 1

In a bas-relief from Vendoeuvres (Fig. 1; Espérandieu, II 1538), an antlered god sits

in a squatting posture with crossed legs. He is commonly identified with Cernunnos,
although he has a juvenile face which probably is due to the function of renewal alluded
to by the scene. The god holds a closed bag on his knees. On both sides of Cernunnos
there are two children or boys standing with one foot on a pedestal and the other foot on
the coil of a snake. Both children raise a hand touching an antler of the god. While Hatt
(1989: 87, 265) identifies the children with the Dioscures who “aident Cernunnos à
sortir de l’enfer”, Green (1989: 95) qualifies the children generically as “two young
acolytes”. In my opinion they are cupids, erotes without wings, which could also be
assimilated to the two archaic Roman Lares. In another paper (Zavaroni 2006b) I have
tried to demonstrate that 1) the name Lares (from OLat. Lases), as well as SouthPic.
Łas and Etr. Lasa, derives from the root *las- ‘desire’, which is a synonym of cupiō; 2)
the Lares of the early Rome were two cupids or erotes concerned with the reproduction
of life.
 Fig. 2

The snakes of the monument from Vendoeuvres recall those we can see in several
paintings at Pompei (see for example Fig. 2), in the lower part of which two snakes face
each other at the opposite sides of an altar. The two Lares often hold a rhyton and stand
on a pedestal. Instead of holding a drinking-horn, the boys of Vendoeuvres touch an
antler of Cernunnos which has the same function. In fact from the Norse mythology
(Grímnismál) we know that the deer Eikþyrnir browses on the leaves of the Læráðr (a
name of the tree of life) and produces a liquid from his antlers which drips into the
Hvergelmir ‘Evil-cauldron’ (as opposed to Mímir’s well: Zavaroni 2006a), giving rise
to all waters. The drinking-horn of the Lares, one extremity of which is commonly
shaped as a ram head, alludes to the aqua vitae, the mysterious spermatic liquid
producing life in the universe according to the “double principle”. Sometimes the
drinking-horn is replaced by a bucket which has the same symbolic function. For
millennia, horned heads have symbolized the double principle and the coiled horns of
the ram, like all spiral forms, have also alluded to the universal cycles, among which the
birth-death-rebirth cycle was certainly the most important on religious grounds.
Besides, since the Mesolithic, if not earlier, snake-shaped supernatural beings have been
considered carriers of souls or embryos from the nether world onto earth.1

1
This function of the snakes would be confirmed if the snakes of the monument from Venoeuvres have a
human face as Green (1992: s.v. Cernunnos) suggests.
 Between the two facing snakes of Fig. 2 there is an altar on the visible side of which
a female figure is drawn: in my opinion it represents a soul, since sometimes souls were
represented as human female figures. Details are not clear, but an egg and a pig’s head
are presumably placed on this altar: in fact such items may be seen on other similar
altars depicted in the Pompeian lararia. Of course the egg and the pig’s head allude to
rebirth. I do not insist on this aspect as I have discussed the role of swine in the cycle of
rebirth in another paper (Zavaroni 2004; see Sterckx, 1997 and 1998: 44-45 on the
swine nature which Lug and his father could assume).
In the bas-relief from Vendoeuvres the boy at the left of Cernunnos holds a wreath
which alludes to the universal cycles; the other boy is feeding the snake with an object
that cannot be exactly defined because it is damaged. In my opinion it is a pàtera
containing round beans. Such a patera is also represented in other monuments. The
meaning of that feeding will be discussed further on. The antlers of the young
Cernunnos, as they replace the drinking-horns commonly held by the Lares, can be
considered producers of the liquid of life. Hence, I cannot agree with the common thesis
(for instance see Ross 1967: 138-139 and Green 1989: 95) that the purse held
occasionally by Cernunnos is a symbol of business success and wealth. Cernunnos is
the echo of an older ambivalent god, the Creator-Destroyer of life: as a chthonian god,
certainly he was a donor of riches and wealth as well as Pluton, the Lat. Dīs and Saturn
and the Germanic Njörðr; but his most important function was to create and destroy
lives. My thesis is that his purse, as well as Mercury’s purse which I discuss in a longer
parallel paper, contains embryos of life.
Assuming this point of view, we might better understand why a god with the lyre is
portrayed in a side of the Vendoeuvres monument (Fig. 3). Scholars commonly identify
the Gaulish gods holding a lyre with Apollon. This is fully justified by a bronze
sculpture from Malain representing a goddess holding a serpent with the right hand and
a young god with the lyre. The dedication Thironna [ = Sirona, Θirona] Apollo on the
base of the sculpture allows us to infer that the god with the lyre was assimilated to the
classic lyrist Apollon. But once more, this interpretatio romana would cause a very
partial vision, if we restricted ourselves to assume that, the lyre being an attribute of
Apollon, here we deal with the god of health and spring waters. The lyre is not a simple
way to indicate that its owner is Apollon. Its very important function 2 – which explains
also the great success of the figure of Orpheus with the lyre in the Romano-British
mosaics of the III-IV century A.D. – appears better in the representations where a
griffin is assimlated to the god with the lyre (see for instance Fig. 4). For several
centuries on pottery, funeral monuments and other items a couple of facing griffins has
sometimes been represented at both sides of a cantharus: this vase – which can be
replaced by a plant symbolizing the tree of life or a bird symbolizing new life – contains
the universal sperm. Griffins personify the chthonian powers protecting the mystery of
life and death. Only the gods with a magic lyre are able to play a melody which induces
the griffins to sleep or be tamed.

2
Hatt (1989 : 261) writes: “Je pense que les Celtes ont emprunté le symbol de la lyre pour exprimer les
efforts d’un dieu, Teutatès d’abord, Apollon ensuite, pour rétablir l’harmonie de l’Univers, troublé par les
luttes entre dieux du Ciel et divinités chtoniennes. Apollon devient donc, à partir du Ier siècle, le
médiateur entre les dieux d’en bas et les dieux d’en haut, et celui qui rétablit l’harmonie de l’Univers. ”
Fig. 3
 Fig. 4
From literary sources we know that the Dagda and Oengus Óc had a similar
instrument, that is a fabulous harp. The harp of the Dagda, which could play only by his
order, was stolen by Bres; but after the battle of Magh Tuired Lug, Ogma and the
Dagda found it. The Dagda played the three melodies of pain, laughter and sleep. By
means of the last, the Fomoires warriors fell asleep, so that Lug, Ogma and the Dagda
could flee with the harp (Grey 1983). According to a tale of the Yellow Book of Lecan,3
the mythic Cormac mac Art, king of Teamhair, once had a vision: Oengus Óc appeared
to him holding a silver harp with red-golden strings. When he started to play a heavenly
melody, two birds perched on the instrument and seemed to play it. After the sweet
music Oengus Óc predicted prophecies dulling Cormac’s brain.
I think that Oengus Óc “Unique-Desire the Young” (from *gustu – “choice, desire <
desired”: this meaning is given in the poetic Dindsenchas) could be assimilated to the
young god associated with the harp and the griffin, given that Oengus Óc governs also
any life reproduction, often represented by birds. Besides, as Oengus Óc has a special
relationship with hogs, we have another clue that he was involved in the rebirth cycle. If
the representation of Orpheus playing the lyre was one of the favourite subjects of the
makers of mosaics in Roman Britain, it was because he was assimilated to a local hero
or god concerned with regeneration.
On the famous monument of Reims (Fig. 5) the antlered god (Cernunnos), here
bearded, sits in a squatting posture between two standing gods who are easily
recognizable as Apollon with the lyre and Mercury with the caduceus, the winged hat
and the purse. The antlered god has a bag on his crossed legs and with one hand he
pours what are commonly considered coins from the bag. The rivulet of the supposed
coins flows between a bull and a deer.

3
Agrati & Magini II, 1993: 771-756.
 Fig. 5
According to Anne Ross, here Cernunnos “is portrayed as patron of commercial
prosperity”.4 According to Jan de Vries (1984 : 184) the altar of Reims clearly shows
that the antlered god dispensed wealth. But such suggestions are due to the fact that the
Mercury of the late official Roman cult – his prerogatives of psychopompos and father
of the Lares being lost – had been reduced to a god of trades, markets and business.
Everybody knows that it would be misleading to adopt this interpretatio romana, but
the role of Lugus-Mercurius in the cycle of souls is perhaps less known, a role that
drives me to put this question about the Reims monument: if Cernunnos’ and Mercury’s
bags contained money, how we could explain that the coins flow between a bull and a
deer? I cannot consent to the ad hoc explanation by Picard (1981 : 43), according to
whom the scene would reflect a “récit celtique, contant l’apparition miraculeuse de
richesses envoyées par les dieux au sein de la nature sauvage”. Similarly, I cannot agree
with Ross (1967: 151), when she suggests that “one relief from Luxembourg
[Espérandieu 4195] portrays a stag vomiting up money”. This suggestion is shared by
Green (1989: 94) who, though, is uncertain whether the rivulet between deer and stag
on the Reims monument is formed by coins or grains which anyway would allude to
wealth.
In my opinion, as on religious grounds deer and bull are symbols of fertility and
hypostases of the divine creator, the rivulet flowing between them is not of coins, but of
life embryos : for most devotees, life and regeneration were more important than
economic wealth. Mercury’s purse too would be full of potential embryos, since the
other attributes of the Gaulish Mercury point out that he is involved in birth and rebirth.
As iconographic analysis and Old Norse literary sources show, the cock was a symbol
of giving birth, while the caduceus, with the two twisted snakes, and the ram or he-goat
or roe allude to the double principle “life/death”, “good/evil” intrinsic in each embryo
or soul. I think that the sculptor of Reims must represent broad beans rather than coins,
since a bean could allude to an embryo. In fact the Pythagoreans prohibited the
consumption of beans as well as eggs, since both eggs and beans symbolized
conception and sprouting : notoriously, Gr. κύαμος “bean” has the same root as
κύημα “foetus, sprout”, κυέω “conceive, become pregnant”. In Rome the flamen
Dialis could not eat beans, because the early Iuppiter was considered a donor of life.
Macrobius (I, 10, 15) writes that according to the old Romans souls were given by Jove
and returned to him after death.
That the small discs cannot represent coins may be inferred from other sculptures. For
instance, in a bas-relief from Beaune (Espérandieu III 2083) a three-headed god sits
between a horned god with goatish feet (on his left) and a naked god who pours the
contents of a pàtera on the open mouth of a snake (Fig. 6). The patera contains five
small discs that we cannot consider coins. Since snakes are carriers of new lives on
earth, those discs represent life embryos. Therefore the naked god – who in my opinion
is assimilable to Eros-Cupid – is involved in fertility and rebirth. A cornucopia stands
near the left leg of this god, while the other two gods each hold a cornucopia with the
left arm. The horned god has been considered as a Cernunnos (Hatt 1989: 239, fig.

4
Ross (1967 : 158, 355) affirms that “in origin, Mercury was a god who, apart from his chthonic
associations, was invoked as a protector of the herds and flocks” . Hence, she presumably also considers
Mercury’s purse as an attribute characterizing him as a god of traders and riches.
209), but several clues, among which the figures on the golden drinking-horns of
Gallehus that we cannot discuss now, lead me to distinguish the antlered or deer-shaped
god from the gods who can appear under the form of a goat or ram, or chamois. The
latter personifies the reproductive power according to the double principle and therefore
symbolizes one of the twin redeemers of souls who are antagonists of the antlered god.
Hence, on the bas-relief of Beaune, Mercury is replaced by the goatish god who in
many other monuments figures, wholly transformed into a goat or ram, by the side of
the Gaulish rex deorum. Mercury’s purse is often put on the head of the he-goat or ram.
This is a further clue that the purse alludes to the reproductive power rather than money.
Another clue is the association of Mercury with a little god whom we may assimilate to
the god of desire and love, given that one of his names is Avites : this name is written on
the the monument from Chalon-sur-Saône, where we see also the divine he-goat
Habros, a cock, a snake and a turtle. A pàtera seems to be represented in the jaws of the
snake.

Fig. 6 Altare di Beaune

 Fig. 7

In the bas-relief from Corinium (Cirencester, Gloucestershire: Fig. 7) a god, whom

Webster identifies with Cernunnos,5 holds a ram-headed snake on each arm. As Ross
(1967: 139) notes, the two snakes “actually substitute the legs of the deity, growing
from his body, bending into a squatting posture, in place of his lower limbs, and then
rearing up to terminate in large ram-horned heads, close to either side of the god’s
face”. Their tongues protrude as if they wanted to eat the round objects contained in the
pàterae suspended over their snouts. I cannot agree with Ross (1967: 139) who, instead
of the paterae, sees “open tops of purses, filled with coins... or the open tops of
cornucopiae, filled with grapes”6. In my opinion those round objects are the embryos
produced by Cernunnos and swallowed by the snake which will bring them on earth.
The symbolism would be similar to that represented in petroglyphs from Scandinavia to
Spain and Italy, where a circle containing cup-marks alluded to the cyclic fertility. In
my opinion cupmarks commonly are “marks of the fertility power”. See for instance the
deer with cup-marks of Laxe das Lebres (Galice: Fig. 8) and the gods on the boat of
rebirth from Svenneby (Sweden: Fig. 9).
5
Webster (1986: 57) affirms that this figure represents “the most remakable and undoubted Cernunnos
from Britain”. He thinks, though, that the legs of the god “are not visible”. According to Ross (1967: 139)
“the evidence however cannot show that this is the Gaulish Cernunnos, or that the type is local or
imported by Belgic immigrant from Gaul”.
6
Webster (1986: 57) suggests that each disc is a “rosette”.
 Fig. 8. Laxe das Lepbres, near Poyo

Fig. 9. Svenneby

As here we cannot deal with the question of the relationship between Cernunnos and the
Gaulish Mercury and Apollon, we will discuss only another feature of Cernunnos itself.
He is commonly represented squatting with crossed legs. Why? I think it is an allusion
to his chthonian infernal nature. Macrobius tells us that Saturn was sometimes
represented with tied legs, while Triton trumpeters with their tails thrust into the ground
were sculpted on the fronton of his temple. Being assimilated to Kronos, Saturn, as well
as the Titans and Giants, is son of Uran and Earth. Since the Giants were often
represented with snake coils instead of legs, we may generically suggest that this
feature alluded to supernatural beings which could live under ground. As Lampridius
(Comm. 9) observes “to go with coils instead of legs and feet is like to move with the
knees tied by bands, quasi dracones” (see also the monument from Corinium).
One could object that in Valcamonica Cernunnos is represented standing, but the
Cernunnos at Piancogno has no feet (Fig. 10), while the Cernunnos at Naquane (Fig.
11) has very short legs below a disproportionately long trunk, in order to emphasize the
weakness of his legs.

Fig. 10. Cernunnos near Piancogno (Valcamonica)

 Fig. 11. Cernunnos at Naquane (Valcamonica)

In Germanic mythology the correspondent of Saturn is Njördhr. When Skadhi chooses

herself a husband from the gods, she chooses by the feet, seeing nothing else of them.
Therefore, noting a pair of exceptionally beautiful feet and thinking that they are
Baldr’s, she chooses Njördhr. The beauty of Njördhr’s legs presumably was the
counterpart of the snake-shaped legs that the god had in other moments, for instance in
the water and under ground.
The Cernunnos of the Gundustrup cauldron too has bent legs which allude to his
inaptitude to walk in opposition to his perfect run when he takes the form of a deer. The
gods holds a ram-headed snake and a torque symbolizing the universal cycles. Eros-
Cupid psychopompos riding a dolphin and other animals alluding to the fertilty power
and death.
A functional counterpart of the god with beautiful legs is the lame god. In a rock
carving at Pià d’Ort (Valcamonica) he is represented between the goatish horned god
alluding to the double principle and another god whom we may identify as the young
“good Twin”, god of love and rebirth. In fact the divine Twins are represented few
centimeters above as duellists who fight for the supremacy on the souls redeemed from
the Creator-Destroyer and carried onto earth.

Fig. 12 Composition at Pià d’Ort (Valcamonica)

The tied legs of Saturn and the beautiful legs of Njördhr find a half-measure in the legs
of the Welsh god Math who in time of peace can live only if he holds his feet in the lap
of a virgin. If Math means “seed” as in modern Welsh, we may compare this god with
the Latin Saturn. The name Goewin of the virgin could mean “little hoof”, since go-
may be a prefix expressing “minor, small” (Schrijver 1995: 112) and ewin means “nail,
hoof”. Such a name would be fit for a goddess like Epona who could assume a horse
shape. The relationship between Math’s feet and Goewin’s lap certainly alludes to a
divine couple presiding over the universal fecundation. Virginity is compatible with a
spiritual fertilization and generation that were conceived as inhalation and emission of
spermatic auras. Great goddesses of other religions, such as Ishtar, Aphrodite, Juno,
renewed their own virginity, while the virgin Diana and Artemis presided over the
fertility of men and animals. The virginity of the mother of Christ, fecundated by the
Holy Spirit, is nothing new.

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