Anyone here Old School Pagan?

[Taverner]

Not Wiccan. As I understand it, Wicca is a collection of traditional Pagan beleifs.

But I mean old school Celtic Pagan....

[khashka]

1. Um, yeah?

Mostly I'm Wiccan ( which was made up from whole cloth by Gerald Gardner in the 1950's).

But I do try to reach back and understand the mythic systems of my ancestors. Generally that means Celtic Pagan.


Khash.

[Taverner]

2. Cool

How prevelant was the Horned God in Celtic Paganism?

I know he occurs alot in pagan mythology - but how central to Celtic lore is he?

Also - what kind of archetypes do you think he came from?

[khashka]

4. The horned god? Oh gods and goddesses that's a tough one.

He's secondary at best.

The goddesses were always paramount. He represents fecundity, male sexuality, death and resurrection. He is the stag that is killed in the hunt so that we might eat and live. Like the Green Man, he waxes and wanes.

He was not central. Necessary and important, but not central. His archetypes are fairly basic. At the core is life through death. We kill animals in order to survive. Their death gives us life. That's him. He's incredibly sexual. In a way that I'm not sure we can even understand any more. He was the goddess's son, her lover, her martyr. We can accept any one of those but not all three at once..

In Celtic lore he often shows up as the hero, the god/king - always subject to the goddess. But he's closer to humanity, he mirrors our lives.


Khash.

[Taverner]

5. Thanks!

Funny how its always the Horned God who gets the fame, but the Goddesses are the ones who did the real work

[lildreamer316]

6. Hey kash...

I was always under the impression also that the horned god was eventually almost exclusively identified with the king or leader of the tribe/people; to the extent that he was "sacrificed" either literally or figuratively each year to be "resurrected" for the next. Certainly a spiritual thing but firmly rooted in the human cycle. Not that the Godess wasn't; but she had so many more spiritual dimensions to her.....
Facinating stuff; even just from the mythilogical perspective. Didn't the king have a challenger to fight each year to see if he was strong enough to lead the people?

[Guy Fawkes]

3. I was...

but those damn big rocks made my back hurt. I hate moving heavy objects. "Lift from the knees" my arse.