The Horned God of the Witches

by Jason Mankey

  The Greeks would come to know this deity as Pan, god of shepherds and the mountains of the Greek region known as Arcadia. Pan was a sexual god par excellence, and over time he would become one of the most popular gods of both Greece and later the Roman Empire. His praises would be sung (and snogged) from Britain to India.

  Back in France (then known as Gaul), the Horned God came to be known as Cernunnos among the Celts who lived there. He, too, was a god of sexual desire and connection to the land, and was praised as the supreme deity of that land. Eventually the Celts of Gaul took his worship across the English Channel and into the land known as Great Britain.

  In Britain, the Horned God adopted other names, though these were all clearly the same horned deity. In English folklore, he became known as Herne, god of the woods and of the Wild Hunt. In the area of Sherwood Forest, he was called Robin Hood, and in other places he was known as Puck or Jack in the Green. Wherever one went in the British Isles, one would find the Horned God.

  Over time, the Horned God would end up everywhere, all because of that image on a cave wall first envisioned over ten thousand years ago. Every culture has their own version of him, but in all those places he’s essentially the same: a god of nature and fertility. The images might change a little bit from place to place, but no matter the location, the figure is still essentially Pan/Cernunnos, the one Horned God.

  By the end of the Middle Ages, Christians had had enough of the Horned God’s influence on Europe’s Witches and Pagans, and thus began the Burning Times. Christians turned the Horned God of the Old Religion into the Devil of their new religion, forever polluting and corrupting how most people see him. In order to extinguish the Horned God’s worship, they executed his followers, and upwards of nine million people, mostly women, died as a result.

  With the alleged triumph of Christianity in Europe, the Horned God went underground, though he was still much loved by the common people. In order to keep his memory alive, they built his face into the temples and cathedrals of the new religion, which is why the Green Man greets so many Christians at their places of worship. Away from the cathedrals, Europe’s Witches kept the Horned God alive, calling him Old Hornie (in honor of his horns and his lusty nature) and making him the center of their rites.

  Over the centuries, the Horned God survived in secret through the rites and whispers of the Witches who kept his faith alive. Meeting in secret, these Witches would celebrate the fertility of the earth and sing the praises of Old Hornie and then eventually share their religion with younger family members. In this way, the secrets of Witchcraft and the Horned God survived to the present day.

  By the start of the twentieth century, beliefs in things such as Witchcraft were no longer punishable by death, and both Witches and the Horned God reemerged in society. With the need for secrecy gone, Witches began writing about their beliefs and sharing their gods with the general public, bringing us to today and this book.

  When I first found Witchcraft in the early 1990s, the story you just read (and/or something similar) was common in both books and conversations with other Witches. For many people, it was something akin to holy writ, absolutely unimpeachable and the stone-cold truth about the Horned God and the Craft. Unfortunately, except for a few points, most of what you just read is simply not true.

  There are thousands of years separating Pan and the cave figure from France (generally known as “the Sorcerer”), with nothing in between connecting the two. In addition, the Sorcerer had antlers on top of his head and most certainly not the horns of a goat, which are two very different things. It’s also likely that gods such as Pan and Cernunnos arose independently of one another, each one a product of the people who worshipped them and the lands that sustained those people.

  Most spiritual pantheons, whether Greek, Norse, Native American, Yoruba, Sumerian, or Celtic, have some sort of nature deity or spirit and, more often than not, a figure related to sexual pleasure and/or fertility. It’s possible that all of these figures are connected by some long-ago ancestor, but not very likely. Also, all of those figures have their own mythologies, stories, and modes of worship, which most often share only superficial attributes.

  It is true that alleged Witches were persecuted and executed during the late Middle Ages and early modern period, and before that Pagan gods were often labeled as demons by overzealous Christians. But there is no evidence to suggest that the “witches” executed during that time were practicing an ancient pagan religion in secret.3 The number of people estimated to have been executed during that time has been extensively revised too, with most scholars suggesting that the actual number of people executed for Witchcraft was 40,000 to 100,000 individuals.

  The story of the Horned God outlined above comes primarily from the work of Dr. Margaret Alice Murray (1863–1963), and the most readable synthesis of it appears in her book The God of the Witches, first published in 1931. Murray was a brilliant Egyptologist and a true trailblazer for women in academia, but her work concerning the history of the Horned God and Witchcraft was often problematic. In fairness to Murray, her work on the history of Witches was more of a hobby than her life’s calling, but in many circles (especially Witch ones), it’s what she’s most remembered for.

  Though Murray’s work involving the Horned God has not been taken seriously by most scholars since at least the 1970s (and in most instances even before that), her work has resonated strongly for nearly a hundred years now.4 It would probably be best to think of Murray’s story of the Horned God as mythology and not history. It’s a powerful story and suggests how strongly people have needed figures like the Horned God over the centuries. It also speaks to many of us today, even those of us who know that it’s not literally true.

  Margaret Murray is a name that will show up dozens of times in this book because her vision of the Horned God was so instrumental in how we perceive him today. I also believe that she was the first person to think of the Horned God (and horned gods) as a category of the divine. It’s likely that you and I wouldn’t be sharing these words right now if not for the work of Murray, and while I’m often critical of her, I’m also extremely appreciative.

  And Murray didn’t get everything wrong. The Myth of the Horned God does contain a grain of truth. There were horned gods in the ancient world, and people who practiced magick in the Middle Ages, and people who truly found solace in the natural world at the start of the modern era. Pieces of the story are true, and how we put them together in our hearts and minds helps to shape how we see the Horned One. There was also a very real horned figure on that cave wall all those thousands of years ago, and the real story of that figure is worth telling.

  The Sorcerer at Trois-Frères

  Scattered throughout modern-day France, Spain, and Portugal are hundreds of caves featuring images of animals (both real and imaginary) painted and carved onto the rock walls. The art in some of these caves dates back over 30,000 years to a period of time known as the Upper Paleolithic, or Old Stone Age. The art in many of the caves is quite sophisticated, and there are images of animals in them that capture movement and facial expressions.

  In a few of these caves are images of half-human, half-animal hybrids. The most common images feature bison with humanlike appendages, but there’s also at least one bird-person. Many people assume that these images depict the first deities worshipped and/or honored by humans, but no one is quite sure. The exact culture of the people who painted these caves is unknown, but many of the caves were used for thousands upon thousands of years.

  Whatever went on in the painted caves of Europe was an ongoing concern for longer than any modern religion has existed. Two or four thousand years feels like an eternity to us, but the people (or perhaps peoples) who used Europe’s caves did so continually for over 25,000 years. If the caves were indeed used for religion, then the religion they were used for is the longest-lasting one in human history.

  Europe’s oldest figurativ
e cave art depicting clearly identifiable animals comes from Chauvet Cave in Southern France and was probably created over 36,500 years ago.5 Rediscovered in the 1990s, it was the subject of the 2010 documentary film Cave of Forgotten Dreams. (The oldest cave paintings of all from the island of Sulawesi, part of modern-day Indonesia, and are over 40,000 years old!) The most famous of Europe’s painted caves is Lascaux (also in France), whose paintings are only 20,000 years old and include striking images of horses and bulls.

  Most of the caves include handprints that might have been left by those who painted and carved the caves of the prehistoric world. Instead of tracing their hands, these ancient artists blew pigment around their hands and pressed them against the cave walls to create prints.6 This gives the handprints an otherworldly quality. Judging by the prints, the artists who painted and carved these ancient caves were predominantly women, as three-quarters of the handprints discovered by archaeologists seem to be the hands of women.7

  When it comes to the Horned God, the most interesting of these caves is the Grotte des Trois-Frères, the Cave of the Three Brothers, in modern-day France. This cave is a relative newcomer compared to Lascaux and Chauvet, with most of its images being only about 15,000 years old. Rediscovered in the early 1910s, Trois-Frères contains several unique elements missing from its cave brethren, and several figures that could be a horned god. Whatever was going on at Trois-Frères, it seems as if horned and antlered creatures were rather important.

  Though I’m using the term cave to describe Trois-Frères, it’s best to think of a cave such as this one as a series of interconnected rooms. The most interesting elements of Trois-Frères appear nearly three-quarters of a mile in, where visitors are greeted by two clay sculptures of bison. There’s nothing comparable to those bison in the rest of Europe’s caves. Deeper into the cave there is a room featuring a carving of a lion, and one passageway containing a carefully placed seashell, most likely used for some sort of devotional purpose.8

  The most famous room at Trois-Frères is known as the “Sanctuary” and is located deep within the cave. The Sanctuary is famous for a couple of reasons, the first being a large wall featuring thousands of carvings of animals, both real and imaginary. The animals on this wall, which extends dozens of yards, are carved one on top of another, so that it almost looks like a jumbled mess. The animal carvings extend so far that they all probably have not been documented yet.

  In the middle of the engravings found in the Sanctuary is an image unlike any of the others. The figure clearly has the head and horns of a bison, but his arms and legs appear human (Figure 1). The figure’s penis is clearly visible between his legs as well, and, most astonishingly, this “Bison-Man” seems to be carrying a tool of some sort. At first glance, that tool appears to be a hunting bow, but it would be thousands more years before bows and arrows were created.

  It’s much more likely that the tool is a nose flute, one of the earliest instruments known to human beings. This makes even more sense the more we look at Bison-Man’s feet and legs, which appear to be engaged in some sort of movement, such as dancing. Unfortunately, the other carved figures around Bison-Man shed very little light on his activities. With the exception of one cowlike creature, most of the animals carved around him don’t seem to note his presence.

  Because the cave painters (and carvers) of Trois-Frères did their work long before alphabets were created, we have no idea what Bison-Man and the animals around him are meant to represent. It’s possible that Bison-Man is a person dressed in animal skins, wearing the head of a bison. It’s possible that he’s in the middle of hunting animals (even if he’s not using a bow). Bison-Man is generally depicted as standing up, but he could also be crawling on the ground. (Flip this page and you’ll see what I mean.) If he is crawling, it lends credence to the idea that he’s a hunter. He also could be some sort of ancient shaman, dancing in order to ensure a successful hunt. Though we don’t know if people 15,000 years ago worshipped deities, he could also be a god (or demigod), but there’s no way to prove that. Whatever Bison-Man is, and whatever he’s doing, it’s unique.

  Figure 1: Henri Breuil’s drawing of the Bison-Man at Trois-Frères.

  Is the figure walking, dancing, or crawling?

  A second Bison-Man appears even deeper in the Sanctuary room and sports an even more noticeable phallus. This Bison-Man is surrounded almost entirely by bison and horses, and is missing the nose flute, which might make it more likely, or less likely (who knows), that he’s hunting. We will probably never know for sure.

  Also in the Sanctuary room is the image that Trois-Frères is most famous for: the Sorcerer. The most reproduced version of the image isn’t a photograph, but a drawing by the first man to excavate Trois-Frères, Catholic monk and archaeologist Henri Breuil (1877–1961). Breuil’s drawing of the figure is far more detailed than the image that appears in photographs, and more well-known too (Figure 2). Breuil’s Sorcerer (a name coined by the priest, since he originally believed the figure was a shaman or magician) has extremely large eyes and very detailed hands and feet. Breuil’s drawing makes the Sorcerer look like a man in a suit being X-rayed. This image is so iconic that some people, upon seeing a photograph of the Sorcerer, are a bit disappointed.

  Figure 2: The Sorcerer as drawn by Henri Breuil.

  The image in the cave lacks the detail found in this drawing,

  but this image of the Sorcerer has become the most famous.

  But I would argue that there’s no reason for disappointment. Even if the Sorcerer doesn’t appear in his cave as vividly as we might like, he’s still striking. Unlike the other images around him, the Sorcerer is both a painted and a carved figure. His outline is carved directly into the cave wall and outlined with black paint. His placement in the Sanctuary was chosen to make it seem like he is looking down at you when you’re in the room, and surveying both you and the animals below.

  The Sorcerer is not a huge image, but is larger than most others in the cave. He’s about two and a half feet tall and eighteen inches across. His phallus is clearly visible, but there’s also an easily seen tail and a body that almost looks like a horse. The horns can be hard to make out because they are carved and not painted over, but they are easy enough to see, as are the figure’s eyes. Less noticeable are his beard and moustache.

  If Bison-Man is an enigma, then the Sorcerer might be an even bigger one. It’s possible that he is also dancing, but there’s no nose flute to base that conjecture on. He seems separate from the carvings below him, and yet lords over them impressively. If he truly was a god, as Margaret Murray first suggested (something that Breuil would later come to believe as well), then he was a magnificent (and ancient) god.9

  We will probably never know what went on in caves such as Trois-Frères. Some think that the caves served as a sort of sympathetic hunting magick (like attracts like: images of animals produce animals), while others think they served some sort of religious function. They might have also chronicled an individual group’s history in a given area or served as a repository for dream images. It’s even been proposed that they are all extensive outcroppings of ancient graffiti, and served no higher purpose than that. (This last theory especially seems absurd, given the care and work that went into the images.)

  It’s possible that figures like the Sorcerer had a variety of meanings. To some people, the figures might have been connected to hunting, while others might have used them as some sort of divine inspiration or way of connecting to higher powers. In my own ritual room, there’s an image of the Sorcerer hanging on the wall, and he looks down upon my coven much like the original image might have looked down upon people 15,000 years ago. Whatever the Sorcerer was or might have been, he seems like an excellent place to begin our search for the Horned God.

  [contents]

  * * *

  3. Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon, 376.

  4. Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon, 37
5.

  5. Perkins, “An Early Start for Some of Europe’s Oldest Cave Art.”

  6. Curtis, The Cave Painters, 172.

  7. Hughes, “Were the First Artists Mostly Women?”

  8. The details of our journey of Trois-Frères come mostly from Gregory Curtis’s 2006 book The Cave Painters. Curtis’s adventure can be found on pages 172–186 of his book. Fewer than perhaps three thousand people have ever been in Trois-Frères, so I sort of have to rely on outside information.

  9. Hutton, Witches, Druids, and King Arthur, 33 and 34.

  Chapter Three

  Ritual to Meet the Horned God

  There is no right or wrong way to “meet” the Horned God, and most of us who honor him in our rites and practices have our own individual meeting stories. Many who know the Horned God have specifically felt his “call,” meaning they felt him reaching out and initiating a relationship. Others have introduced themselves to the Horned God after becoming acquainted with him in Witchcraft or mythology books. I’m sure there are some folks who have met him in their dreams or perhaps simply heard him whisper to them while out in nature.

  This ritual is designed mostly for those who have yet to truly experience the Horned God. It serves as a way of introducing new Witches to the Horned One, and as a way for Old Hornie to reveal something of himself as well. If you are an experienced practitioner, this ritual might feel a bit simplistic or unnecessary, and I totally understand if you want to skip to some of the meatier rituals in this book. But everyone has to start somewhere, and this ritual is designed to fill that need, and also serves as a good reintroduction to the mysteries of the Horned God if it’s been a while.

  Ideally this ritual should be performed outdoors in a secluded spot. If that’s not possible, I recommend doing it near a window so you can capture at least a little bit of sun or moonlight. Because this ritual attempts to capture all of the many varied attributes of the Horned God, enacting it at a liminal time such as the evening is ideal. (Sunrise would also work here if you are an early riser.) I’ve tried to keep this rite as simple as possible for those who might have to enact it in a public place such as a park or shared green space.