of the Mediterranean with, comparatively few altars: be that as it may, French archæology has succeeded in identifying the Gaulish god, and in showing at the same time that his cult had very firm hold on the Gaulish mind. M. Mowat[1] is again our guide to the interpretation of another of the early Gallo-Roman altars dug up in Paris, namely, one with the figure of the god surmounted by his name, which in its perfect state is known to have read Cernunnos, a kindred form of which occurs on a wax tablet at Pesth in a mention of a funerary college holding its meetings in the temple of a Jupiter Cernenus.[2] In this last one cannot help recognizing a chthonian divinity corresponding to the Jupiter Stygius of the Romans. The form Cernunnos and the Latinized one Cernenus contain the common stem cern-, which may be assumed to be of the same origin as the native words for the Gaulish horn or trumpet, variously given by Greek writers[3] as κάρνον and κάρνυξ: the Welsh and Irish form is corn, of the same etymology and meaning as the Latin cornu, English horn. How this name suits the god, a glance at the Paris altar suffices to explain; for underneath the word Cernunnos is to be seen, bearded and clothed, a central figure whose forehead is adorned with the two horns[4] of a stag, from each of which hangs a torque. The
- ↑ Bull. Épigr. de la Gaule, i. 111—116.
- ↑ Ibid. p. 113; Orelli-Henzen, No. 6087; B. Corpus, Vol. iii. p. 926.
- ↑ Hesychius, κάρνον · τὴν σάλπιγγα Γαλάται; and Eustathius (Leipsic, 1829), ad Homeri II. 1139, 57, κάρνυξ.
- ↑ With the Gaulish divinities of this kind M. d'Arbois de Jubainville would compare, Cycle Myth. p. 384, an Irish Buarainech, which he renders 'à la figure de vache:' the person so called is said to have been the father of Balor.
