and why he had horns. M. Mowat would answer the first by showing that the squatting position was familiar to the Gauls, as proved by more than one ancient author;[1] whence it was that they thought proper to give some of their gods, and especially the one whom they regarded as their universal parent, an attitude which was familiar to them and characteristic of their race; so they also represented him wearing the sagum; other gods might take to Roman ways, but he must remain true to old-fashioned Gaul. With regard to the horns, the same archæologist would account for them by suggesting that the Amalthean horn had, in the form of a cornucopia, single or double, everywhere become the emblem of abundance, and further that the Gauls were in the habit of using the cornucopia as an ornament for the head.[2] Neither answer can be said to go far enough, for it seems probable that both the squatting posture and the horns had a mythological signification reaching back beyond the history of the Celts as a distinct branch of the Aryan family, though we may never be able to find out its precise meaning.
Fortunately there remains one source of light on the genesis and history of Cernunnos which no one, so far as I know, has tried, namely, Teutonic and especially Norse mythology. At the very threshold of the latter, one's eyes light at once on an ancient god, Heimdal, the allusions to whom are, so to say, so scanty that Norse students have never been able to draw a complete or consistent picture of him. This god is briefly described
