Cernunnos: Speculative Archaeology and its influence on modern Paganism

By Katrina Stone

Somewhere between 100-200 CE, a man in what is now today known as France carved a word upon a stone. That word, found nowhere else to this day, was Cernunnos. It is inscribed in Latin, and scholars have said that it means “Horned One”.

Since the finding of this one word on a stone, many people have speculated what it means. The most common is that it is the name of a God. Many Wiccans have put forth the theory (which they state as indisputable fact) that Cernunnos, the horned God of the Celts, was worshipped far and wide, from Gaul to Britain (and sometimes is the same god as Pan, but that ties into the Wiccan “All gods are one God, and all goddesses are one Goddess thing). My theory on how this word became so entrenched with the Horned God of the Pagans view starts with Margaret Murray. Her theory of the Horned God of the Witches was put into practice by Gerald Gardner and expanded upon by Doreen Valiente.

Why Wicca Is Not Celtic

The following is by no means an indictment of the religion called Wicca. Wicca is indeed a valid and powerful path for those who truthfully walk it and understand it. However, there is a body of people who believe that Wicca is the descendant of the religious ways of the Gaelic or other Celtic peoples (or 'Celts' as a general nomenclature). This simply is not the case.

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