Cernunnos, the wild Dioscuri. Comparative research on the Dionysian deity of the Celts.
The Harmattan| N° d'inventaire | 25629 |
| Format | 15.5 x 24 |
| Détails | 563 p., illustrated, paperback. |
| Publication | Paris, 2010 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 04183811 |
Cernunnos, "The Horned One," the god with deer antlers! A name and an image that evoke the irreducible strangeness of the Gallic religion, little known in the absence of texts bequeathed by the ancient Celts. Yet, Cernunnos belongs above all to the Indo-European domain and admits a remarkable theological counterpart in the Greek Dionysus, whose half-brother Apollo, for his part, has the Celtic Lugus as his alter ego. The study of classical sources, Gallic and Gallo-Roman documents, Irish and Welsh mythological stories and tales, as well as traditions Christianized in the lives of saints, demonstrates that Cernunnos forms precisely with Lugus a pair of complementary twins, like the Greek Dioscuric couples. Rivals and united - as Apollo and Dionysus are in a lesser form in Greece - they cyclically clash for the domination of nature and the possession of a divine wife.
The combined examination of Celtic and Greek myths allows us to uncover the complex and fascinating personality of this god of the wild spaces, as comfortable in the water as in the woods, possessor of unparalleled prophetic and poetic knowledge. Dying and reborn several times, embodying the various ages of life and the mastery of time, Cernunnos will never fade from the Western imagination, his most emblematic romantic heir being none other than Merlin!
In this investigation, the various figures of the wild god, his parents, his epigones and his lovers are revealed in turn. In Greece as in Celtic countries, sometimes well-known stories emerge enriched by the confrontation which also features the animals, companions or incarnations of the god and his rival. Deer, birds, snakes, wolves, dolphins and seals cross paths, challenge each other, avoid each other in a choreography which also takes place in the sky, following the seasons, the phases of the Moon and Orion, the great astral hunter. Finally, Indo-Iranian cousins: Zarathustra, the Ossetian Twins and the immense Shiva himself, bear witness to the treasure of ancestral myths of which Cernunnos was the custodian.
Cernunnos, "The Horned One," the god with deer antlers! A name and an image that evoke the irreducible strangeness of the Gallic religion, little known in the absence of texts bequeathed by the ancient Celts. Yet, Cernunnos belongs above all to the Indo-European domain and admits a remarkable theological counterpart in the Greek Dionysus, whose half-brother Apollo, for his part, has the Celtic Lugus as his alter ego. The study of classical sources, Gallic and Gallo-Roman documents, Irish and Welsh mythological stories and tales, as well as traditions Christianized in the lives of saints, demonstrates that Cernunnos forms precisely with Lugus a pair of complementary twins, like the Greek Dioscuric couples. Rivals and united - as Apollo and Dionysus are in a lesser form in Greece - they cyclically clash for the domination of nature and the possession of a divine wife.
The combined examination of Celtic and Greek myths allows us to uncover the complex and fascinating personality of this god of the wild spaces, as comfortable in the water as in the woods, possessor of unparalleled prophetic and poetic knowledge. Dying and reborn several times, embodying the various ages of life and the mastery of time, Cernunnos will never fade from the Western imagination, his most emblematic romantic heir being none other than Merlin!
In this investigation, the various figures of the wild god, his parents, his epigones and his lovers are revealed in turn. In Greece as in Celtic countries, sometimes well-known stories emerge enriched by the confrontation which also features the animals, companions or incarnations of the god and his rival. Deer, birds, snakes, wolves, dolphins and seals cross paths, challenge each other, avoid each other in a choreography which also takes place in the sky, following the seasons, the phases of the Moon and Orion, the great astral hunter. Finally, Indo-Iranian cousins: Zarathustra, the Ossetian Twins and the immense Shiva himself, bear witness to the treasure of ancestral myths of which Cernunnos was the custodian.