The Horned Serpent appears in the mythologies of many cultures including Native American peoples, [1] European, and Near Eastern mythology. Details vary among cultures, with many of the stories associating the mystical figure with water, rain, lightning, thunder, and rebirth. Horned Serpents were major components of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex of North American prehistory. [2] [3]
Horned serpents appear in the oral history of numerous Native American cultures, especially in the Southeastern Woodlands and Great Lakes.
Muscogee Creek traditions include a Horned Serpent and a Tie-Snake, estakwvnayv in the Muscogee Creek language. These are sometimes interpreted as being the same creature and sometimes different—similar, but the Horned Serpent is larger than the Tie-Snake. To the Muscogee people, the Horned Serpent is a type of underwater serpent covered with iridescent, crystalline scales and a single, large crystal in its forehead. Both the scales and crystals are prized for their powers of divination. [5] The horns, called chitto gab-by, were used in medicine. [6] Jackson Lewis, a Muscogee Creek informant to John R. Swanton, said, "This snake lives in the water has horns like the stag. It is not a bad snake. ... It does not harm human beings but seems to have a magnetic power over game." [7] In stories, the Horned Serpent enjoyed eating sumac, Rhus glabra . [8]
Alabama people call the Horned Serpent tcinto såktco or "crawfish snake", which they divide into four classifications based on its horns' colors, which can be blue, red, white, or yellow. [7]
Yuchi people made effigies of the Horned Serpent as recently as 1905. An effigy was fashioned from stuffed deerhide, painted blue, with the antlers painted yellow. The Yuchi Big Turtle Dance honors the Horned Serpent's spirit, which was related to storms, thunder, lightning, disease, and rainbows. [6]
Among Cherokee people, a Horned Serpent is called an uktena. Anthropologist James Mooney, describes the creature:
Those who know say the Uktena is a great snake, as large around as a tree trunk, with horns on its head, and a bright blazing crest like a diamond on its forehead, and scales glowing like sparks of fire. It has rings or spots of color along its whole length, and can not be wounded except by shooting in the seventh spot from the head, because under this spot are its heart and its life. The blazing diamond is called Ulun'suti—"Transparent"—and he who can win it may become the greatest wonder worker of the tribe. But it is worth a man's life to attempt it, for whoever is seen by the Uktena is so dazed by the bright light that he runs toward the snake instead of trying to escape. As if this were not enough, the breath of the Uktena is so pestilential, that no living creature can survive should they inhale the tiniest bit of the foul air expelled by the Uktena. Even to see the Uktena asleep is death, not to the hunter himself, but to his family.
According to Sioux belief, the Unhcegila (Ųȟcéǧila) are dangerous reptilian water monsters which lived in ancient times. They were of various shapes. In the end the Thunderbirds destroyed them, except for small species like snakes and lizards. This belief may have been inspired by finds of dinosaur fossils in Sioux tribal territory. The Thunderbird may have been inspired partly by finds of pterosaur skeletons. [9]
The ram-horned serpent was a cult image found in north-west Europe before and during the Roman period. It appears three times on the Gundestrup cauldron, and in Romano-Celtic Gaul was closely associated with the horned or antlered god Cernunnos, in whose company it is regularly depicted. This pairing is found as early as the fourth century BC in Northern Italy, where a huge antlered figure with torcs and a serpent was carved on the rocks in Val Camonica. [10]
A bronze statuette called the God of Étang-sur-Arroux and a stone sculpture from Sommerécourt depict Cernunnos' body encircled by two horned snakes which feed from bowls of fruit and corn-mash balanced in the god's lap. Also at Sommerécourt is a sculpture of a goddess holding a cornucopia and a pomegranate, with a horned serpent eating from a bowl of food. At Yzeures-sur-Creuse a carved youth has a ram-horned snake twined around his legs, with its head at his stomach. In a relief at a museum in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, Cernunnos' legs are depicted as two ram-horned snakes which rear up on each side of his head and are eating fruit or corn.
According to Miranda Green, the snakes reflect the peaceful nature of the god, associated with nature and fruitfulness, and perhaps accentuate his association with regeneration. [10]
Other deities occasionally accompanied by ram-horned serpents include "Celtic Mars" and "Celtic Mercury". The horned snake, and also conventional snakes, appear together with the solar wheel, apparently as attributes of the sun or sky god. [10]
Variations on the horned serpent appear throughout the folklores of Northern and Central Europe. For example, there are the many incarnations of the Lindworm. There are tales of a serpent in Icelandic folklore known as the Lagarfljót Worm. While in Southern Sweden, there are claims of a huge water snake, the sight of which was deadly, called Storsjöodjuret . [11] This latter characteristic is reminiscent of the basilisk.
The cerastes is a creature described in Greek mythology as a snake with either two large ram-like horns or four pairs of smaller horns. Isidore of Seville described it as hunting by burying itself in sand while leaving its horns visible, and attacking creatures that came to investigate them. [12]
In Mesopotamian mythology, Ningishzida is sometimes depicted as a serpent with horns. In other depictions, he is shown as human but is accompanied by bashmu , mushussu, and ushumgal (three horned snakes in Akkadian mythology). Ningishzida shares the epithet, ushumgal, "great serpent", with several other Mesopotamian gods. [13]
A horned serpent cave art is known from the La Belle France cave in South Africa, often conflated with the Dingonek. It may be based on dicynodont fossils. [14]
In ancient Celtic and Gallo-Roman religion, Cernunnos or Carnonos is a god depicted with antlers, seated cross-legged, and is associated with stags, horned serpents, dogs and bulls. He is usually shown holding or wearing a torc and sometimes holding a bag of coins and a cornucopia. He is believed to have originally been a Proto-Celtic God. There are more than fifty depictions and inscriptions referring to him, mainly in the north-eastern region of Gaul.
The Horned God is one of the two primary deities found in Wicca and some related forms of Neopaganism. The term Horned God itself predates Wicca, and is an early 20th-century syncretic term for a horned or antlered anthropomorphic god partly based on historical horned deities.
The serpent, or snake, is one of the oldest and most widespread mythological symbols. The word is derived from Latin serpens, a crawling animal or snake. Snakes have been associated with some of the oldest rituals known to humankind and represent dual expression of good and evil.
The European dragon is a legendary creature in folklore and mythology among the overlapping cultures of Europe.
The Gundestrup cauldron is a richly decorated silver vessel, thought to date from between 200 BC and 300 AD, or more narrowly between 150 BC and 1 BC. This places it within the late La Tène period or early Roman Iron Age. The cauldron is the largest known example of European Iron Age silver work. It was found dismantled, with the other pieces stacked inside the base, in 1891, in a peat bog near the hamlet of Gundestrup in the Aars parish of Himmerland, Denmark. It is now usually on display in the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, with replicas at other museums; it was in the UK on a travelling exhibition called The Celts during 2015–2016.
The mušḫuššu or mushkhushshu is a creature from ancient Mesopotamian mythology. A mythological hybrid, it is a scaly animal with hind legs resembling the talons of an eagle, lion-like forelimbs, a long neck and tail, two horns on its head, a snake-like tongue, and a crest. The mušḫuššu most famously appears on the Ishtar Gate of the city of Babylon, dating to the sixth century BCE.
The cerastes is a creature of Greek legend, a serpent that is incredibly flexible—so much so that it is said to have no spine. Cerastae can have either two large ram-like horns or two pairs of smaller horns. The cerastes hides its head in the sand with only the horns protruding out of the surface; this is meant to deceive other animals into thinking it is food. When the animal approaches the cerastes, the cerastes promptly kills it.
The Master of Animals, Lord of Animals, or Mistress of the Animals is a motif in ancient art showing a human between and grasping two confronted animals. The motif is very widespread in the art of the Ancient Near East and Egypt. The figure may be female or male, it may be a column or a symbol, the animals may be realistic or fantastical, and the human figure may have animal elements such as horns, an animal upper body, an animal lower body, legs, or cloven feet. Although what the motif represented to the cultures that created the works probably varies greatly, unless shown with specific divine attributes, when male the figure is typically described as a hero by interpreters.
Snakes are a common occurrence in myths for a multitude of cultures. The Hopi people of North America viewed snakes as symbols of healing, transformation, and fertility. Snakes in Mexican folk culture tell about the fear of the snake to the pregnant women where the snake attacks the umbilical cord. The Great Goddess often had snakes as her familiars—sometimes twining around her sacred staff, as in ancient Crete—and they were worshipped as guardians of her mysteries of birth and regeneration. Although not entirely a snake, the plumed serpent, Quetzalcoatl, in Mesoamerican culture, particularly Mayan and Aztec, held a multitude of roles as a deity. He was viewed as a twin entity which embodied that of god and man and equally man and serpent, yet was closely associated with fertility. In ancient Aztec mythology, Quetzalcoatl was the son of the fertility earth goddess, Cihuacoatl, and cloud serpent and hunting god, Maxicoat. His roles took the form of everything from bringer of morning winds and bright daylight for healthy crops, to a sea god capable of bringing on great floods. As shown in the images there are images of the sky serpent with its tail in its mouth, it is believed to be a reverence to the sun, for which Quetzalcoatl was also closely linked.
Ningishzida was a Mesopotamian deity of vegetation, the underworld and sometimes war. He was commonly associated with snakes. Like Dumuzi, he was believed to spend a part of the year in the land of the dead. He also shared many of his functions with his father Ninazu.
The Snake-witch, Snake-charmer or Smiss stone is a picture stone found at Smiss, När socken, Gotland, Sweden.
Hybrid beasts are creatures composed of parts from different animals, including humans, appearing in the folklore of a variety of cultures as legendary creatures.
The gods and goddesses of the pre-Christian Celtic peoples are known from a variety of sources, including ancient places of worship, statues, engravings, cult objects, and place or personal names. The ancient Celts appear to have had a pantheon of deities comparable to others in Indo-European religion, each linked to aspects of life and the natural world. Epona was an exception and retained without association with any Roman deity. By a process of syncretism, after the Roman conquest of Celtic areas, most of these became associated with their Roman equivalents, and their worship continued until Christianization. Pre-Roman Celtic art produced few images of deities, and these are hard to identify, lacking inscriptions, but in the post-conquest period many more images were made, some with inscriptions naming the deity. Most of the specific information we have therefore comes from Latin writers and the archaeology of the post-conquest period. More tentatively, links can be made between ancient Celtic deities and figures in early medieval Irish and Welsh literature, although all these works were produced well after Christianization.
Deities depicted with horns or antlers are found in numerous religions across the world. Horned animals, such as bulls, goats, and rams, may be worshiped as deities or serve as inspiration for a deity's appearance in religions that venerate animal gods. Many pagan religions include horned gods in their pantheons, such as Pan in Greek mythology and Ikenga in Odinala. Some neopagan religions have reconstructed these deities into the concept of the Horned God, representing the male aspect of divinity in Wiccan belief.
The God of Amiens is a Gallo-Roman bronze statuette found in Amiens, Somme. The statuette, which has been dated to the end of the 1st century CE, is of a male youth sat in lotus position, with the right ear of an animal, perhaps a deer's. This statuette is on display at the Musée de Picardie.
The God of Étang-sur-Arroux is a Gallo-Roman bronze statuette, probably found in the commune of Étang-sur-Arroux, not far from Autun, France. The statuette is of a bearded figure sat in lotus position with two ram-headed, fish-tailed serpents feeding from a basket in his hands. The horned serpents and holes in the head for antlers identify this as a representation of the Gaulish stag god Cernunnos. One peculiar feature, the presence of human faces above each ear, has been commented on.
