In honor of Pride month, let’s remember that Cernunnos is NOT a god of sexuality and masculinity. He was never historically associated with those things.
Historically he was the god of liminality, a mediator between realms, a traveler, a merchant.
His name was appropriated from the Gauls by Wiccans who falsely conflated him with Pan, who does represent sexuality and masculinity.
If if you want a sexual, masculine horned god, you want Pan.
Signed,
Your local non-binary asexual, worshipper of Cernunnos, who is Tired of seeing him portrayed in a sexual manner when that was never one of his attributes to begin with
Okay that’s great you worship Cernunnos a certain way. And if you want if you want more non sexual art of Cernunnos cool. And there needs to be more respect of nonbinary and asexual people
But don’t come here and gatekeep how I worship my gods.
What happened to people will see gods in different ways and we need to keep our noses out of other people’s altars? This isn’t like appropriating a closed culture where using the traditions and practices of that culture could make it more difficult for those people to retain their identity due to the massive amount of discrimination and historical erasure they have experienced.
My experiences with Cernunnos are different than yours and I’m bisexual and Genderfluid. Don’t try and belittle and mock that. Because at the end of the day, if we worship the gods exactly how history shows them, all the male Greek gods would be rapists, most of the female Greek gods would be rape apologists or victim blamers. Celtic and Viking gods would be demanding human sacrifice as well as slavery.
Signed,
A individual left the Christian faith exactly because of this attitude so if that’s how you’re gonna be, go sit next to them. You don’t get to go into people’s lives and decide things like this, that is so arrogant and entitled and rude, and just downright disrespectful. You don’t want Cernunnos to be sexual in your religious practices? Great but DONT YOU DARE try and shame me for what I do and things I have experienced and the relationship I have with my gods , because you are just turning around and doing the exact same bullshit that all these religious extremists have been doing.
I understand where you’re coming from with each person worshipping differently. But the main problem I’m seeing with the general perception of Cernunnos is that he is constantly listed as a Celtic god of fertility, masculinity, sexuality, and hunting when that has never been historically attributed to him at all.
You can call Hades the god of flowers, or Zeus the god of kittens, or Ra the god of skateboards, but just because you personally associate a god with something doesn’t mean that’s who that god is.
Cernunnos was never historically depicted with an erect phallus. And yet when I try to look for statues or images of him to put on my altar, 4 out of 5 will have a phallus. And I don’t think it’s appropriate to take a god out of their historical context to fit your personal idea of how they should be.
This is simply a fact. You will never find a Gaulish depiction of the Gaulish god Cernunnos that connects him with sexuality. And I think it is disrespectful to any god to ignore their attributes and decide to give them new ones.
Signed, one of many people who have done extensive research into historical facts about who Cernunnos was
Please refer to the extensive and thorough research done by @thebloodybones if you disagree with these facts
@cernunnoselua @freecernunnos @tailybone, and @houndofbel also have more information
This post isn’t about shaming others for how they worship gods. If you are Wiccan or ascribe to Wiccan beliefs, I will respect that! The problem here is that this interpretation popularized by Wiccans (that Cernunnos is Irish, or a god of Fertility, or The Green Man, etc etc) is so overesaturated in the community that it makes it difficult for the rest of us to find historical or academic resources with credible information on him. I understand how the OP might come across as gatekeeping, but I do ask that you try to look at it from our perspective.
@Limimal-dualities is correct when they claim there is no solid concrete proof to link Cernunnos with Fertility. This is a trait projected onto him in the last century or so, most sources claiming these claims always trickle back to the same regurgitated rhetoric originally pitched in the 40’s. I don’t think there is anything wrong with worshipping an alternate interpretation of a god, that’s not my issue. Relationships with deities are personal and sacred, i would never tell anyone that their interpretation is wrong if it was important to them. My issue is people will be passing this information off as indisputiple historical fact, when in reality the gauls never wrote anything down so there just isn’t enough context to prove much of anything. It makes it so hard to find credible information.
If you would like to learn more about who the Gaulish Cernunnos originally was, and what information we do have about him, I highly recommend “Cernunnos: Not Your Mother’s Horned God” (Google with quotations will lead you to the essay, i would be happy to hunt it down for you of you can’t find it). There’s also a pretty well-researched video essay on YouTube that’s titled “Cernunnos: Looking Every Which Way”. I don’t consider either of these sources indisputable, but they’re both constructed with a sincere attempt to remain historically accurate and have good historical sources and context for their research.
Published
fair--y backup 