#carnonos

[paganpillar]

He's here, and he's BEAUTIFUL.

[fae-vixen]

If you are Nonhuman/Incarnate: Are you a pagan, and do you work with Cernunnos*?

Not Nonhuman Button

Yes I'm Nonhuman, but No I'm not pagan.

Yes I'm Nonhuman, Yes I'm pagan, No I don't work with Cernunnos

Yes I'm Nonhuman, Yes I'm pagan, Yes I work with Cernunnos

Nuance/Other (feel free to elaborate)

Voting ended onMar 20, 2025

*Cernunnos the Deity, either from a Gaulish or generally Celtic perspective, NOT the Wiccan Horned God. Please respect the difference.

If you happen to fall into this weird like intersection of things, hi!! I'm a Cernunnos devotee that does a lot of research as acts of devotion haha I am currently batting around a theory/theories about Cernunnos' connection to the Nonhuman/Incarnate pagan community through His role as mediator between the Worlds. If you'd be willing to tell me anything about your personal experiences with Him, please reach out to me directly!

I'm actually working on a list of basically interview questions, and I'd love some perspectives beyond only that of my partner and myself.

Please reblog for sample size! No matter where you exist within this poll, thank you for participating~

[mvaljean525]

Mid-summer, Cernunnos is calling Hypnotized as in a dream My feet upon damp earth I found him in a grove High among the hills He sent chills down my spine But I too felt desire as I touched his horns I was reborn, magic singing in my blood Children of the woods Come out from hiding Power, that is binding Scathed in my skin A silent promise To the forest Cross legged beneath a yew

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Cernunnos

A. Rose

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Graphic - Inge Vandormael

[xartus]

I'm gonna try to summarize my recent research into "Carnonos":

It would seem that, in times of old (Mesolithic), a deer cult emerged in northern Europe/Eurasia

Of course the origins can't ever be fully known but it seems to have originated with sympathetic hunting magic and then evolved into something dealing more with "shamanism"/spiritual mediators

Its hypothesized that people, who depended on the deer for lots of things, would dress in their skins and antlers as a way to

a)hunt then without spooking the deer because they smelled and looked like them and

b)perform sympathetic magic in rituals where deer behavior would be mimicked while wearing deer costume as a way to invoke their presence and make the hunt more fruitful

While performing these rituals/hunting practices, the people became creatures of liminal nature: man and beast, capable of interacting with both and moving through both spaces

This liminal nature allowed for them to became mediators between the world of man and animals and also the world of spirits

So the question is: in depictions of people with antlers or in depictions of beings with deer and human qualities, what exactly is it?

Well yes it could just be the ritual mediator, that is a possibility and certainly probable. However, there's another theory that these depictions show a being that is the parallel spiritual mediator on the "other side", as a helper spirit to the human on this "side"

An ancestor of both humans and deer, the proto spiritual mediator, master of the liminal and all paths everywhere. And it doesn't have to be one thing, it could have been a type of spirit, who knows?

As time goes on, the liminal nature of the deer and deer-mediators becomes more organized and there becomes a distinct association not only with the hunt and the spirit world but also with leading the dead to their dwelling place. Thus this spirit, type of spirit, or ancester deer-mediator becomes a psychopomp and deer become highly associated with spiritual mediators/"shamans"

Time progresses and now it's the Neolithic. The economy has changed, trade has changed, we have changed. We are more removed from nature and develop an in-versus-out, us-versus-them mentality. The deer becomes a trade good proper. We have invented agriculture and with it a cult of the sun and the fertility of the earth. The deer becomes a symbol of the regeneration of natural cycles (think antlers shedding and growing), an emmisary of the now mysterious forces of nature and connected to the sun cult through these other associations

In some places this spirit becomes a deity of pastoral land, liminality, flocks and paths(Proto Undo European, Paxuson). In others, a deity of the hunt and a tutelary guardian(Anatolian, Hittite ect). In others still a deity involved in the ways of all fertility, land and human and animal(Scandanavian, Freyr). In the Celtic culture the child-deity seems to have retained some aspects of dual nature and psychopomp (Gaul, Carnonos)

Whether this spirit is a deified ancestor or a spirit sent from beyond to aid us or a type of spirit is ultimately irrelevant- what matters is that a conception of a being such as this existed and continued to exist in fragmented or evolved form for thousands of years

[antlering]

here's my first pass at 3d printing Carnonos! still needs painting and probably sanding.. i'm definitely going to reprint him when I understand the software better because whittling away some of the support structure just beat him up

[blesscernunnos]

Cernunnos

Your antlers reach into the sky and bring wisdom to us humans below

Your hands reach out with care and openness

Your eyes tell stories of the world beyond what humans can see

You, standing above us in power and knowledge, extending branches to us here on the ground so we might climb to greater heights

Generous with your devotees and patient with the tired, frustrated, and unsure

O Cernunnos, it is simply an honor to speak your name and feel the word on my tongue

[aerislunam]

Cernunnos

[paganpillar]

Cernunnos

Gaulish God of liminality, crossroads, death, pastoral wealth, abundance, hunters, the hunted, the wild, and the tame.