History Main / Cernunnos

* ''Series/HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys'': Spelled as "Kernunnos," he was part of the BigBadEnsemble of Season 5 alongside Dahak, Dumuzi, Loki, Ares, ArchangelMichael, and the Four Horsemen, after Herc left Greece to travel to Ireland.

Cernunnos is a recurring figure in artwork and ritual objects from pre-Roman and, later, Latinized Gaul, as well as a minor figure in the Iberian Peninsula and possibly the British isles. The precise nature of this entity is fairly obscure, although he is believed to have been a psychopomp deity, and he is typically depicted as sitting cross-legged, wearing or holding a torc, and surrounded by animals such as stags, bulls, horned serpents, dogs, and rats. His most notable physical feature is a large pair of antlers growing from his head, and indeed his name is derived from ''karnon'', the Gaulish noun for "horn" or "antler".

In modern fiction and mysticism, Cernunnos has come to be seen as a deity of animals, hunting, and forest lands. He is often depicted as a form of powerful NatureSpirit who watches over forests and their denizens. His relationship with human hunters can vary from being a figure who must be propitiated in order to pursue his charges to being a patron of hunters, and indeed he is often a skilled hunter himself. His nonhuman traits are often expanded to his being depicted with an entirely stag-like head, often alongside cloven hooves for feet, instead of simply being a man with antlers, and he is typically associated with deer in a broader thematic sense as well. If he's presented as a male counterpart or a spouse to someone, that someone is likely to be some sort of EarthMother figure.

In darker interpretations, he may also be associated with TheWildHunt. In these cases he is often conflated with Herne the Hunter, another horned hunter-figure originating from ''Theatre/TheMerryWivesOfWindsor'' that has since entered English folklore. "Herne" is believed to derive from "horn" similarly to the derivation of "Cernunnos" from "karnon", and some folklorists posit a link between Shakespeare's Herne and the older Cernunnos myth, although proof of anything is fairly tenuous.

Cernunnos is a recurring figure in artwork and ritual objects from pre-Roman and, later, Latinized Gaul. The precise nature of this entity is fairly obscure, although he is believed to have been a psychopomp deity, and he is typically depicted as sitting cross-legged, wearing or holding a torc, and surrounded by animals such as stags, bulls, horned serpents, dogs, and rats. His most notable physical feature is a large pair of antlers growing from his head, and indeed his name is derived from ''karnon'', the Gaulish noun for "horn" or "antler".

* ''VideoGame/EtrianOdysseyI'': Cernunnos is the boss of the second Stratum, the primitive jungle. In this game, it is a humanoid creature with massive ram-like horns rather than stag antlers.

* ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'': Cernunnos is the boss of the second Stratum, the primitive jungle. In this game, it is a humanoid creature with massive ram-like horns rather than stag antlers.

* The Horned One is a significant god in the backstory of ''Literature/TheChildThief''. Via various bits of CanonWelding, he is one of the dead gods of Avalon and wielded the Arthurian sword Caliburn before it was stolen from him. His son, Ulfger, despises humanity and one of the central villains of the piece. [[spoiler: He is also revealed to be the father of HeroicSociopath Peter, which allows him to claim the sword from his half-brother and slay him.]]

* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'': The demigod Cenarius and his children the Keepers of the Grove are stag-like centaurs with antlers and an arm that turns into a gnarled root who guard the forests of Ashenvale. They can create treants from trees, use roots to trap enemies, and summon healing rains around themselves.

*** His [[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer40000}} science-fantasy counterpart]] was part of the [[SpaceElves Eldar]] pantheon, and was explicitly Isha's husband. His portfolio appears to be similar, if not identical to his fantasy counterpart, though he plays a much smaller role. Beside being the mythological co-creator of the Eldar and a few entanglements with a rival Eldar god, [[WarGod Kaela Mensha Khaine]], Kurnous's main part of the metaplot was dying along with the majority of the Eldar Pantheon and roughly 99% of the Eldar species during the calamitous birth of [[GodOfEvil Slaanesh]], a deity of excess the Eldar accidentally created after a long, long orgy of violence and hedonism.

Cernunnos is a recurring figure in artwork and ritual objects from pre-Roman and, later, Latinized Gaul. The precise nature of this entity is fairly obscure, although he is believed to have been a deity, and he is typically depicted as sitting cross-legged, wearing or holding a torc, and surrounded by animals such as stags, bulls, horned serpents, dogs, and rats. His most notable physical feature is a large pair of antlers growing from his head, and indeed his name is derived from ''karnon'', the Gaulish noun for "horn" or "antler".

* ''Series/HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys'': Spelled as "Kernunnos," he was the BigBad of Season 5, after Herc left Greece to travel to Ireland.

* ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' has Cernunnos as a summonable demon, appearing as a squat, hairy humanoid with antlers riding a giant stag skull.

* ''Series/HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys'': spelled as "Kernunnos," he was the big bad of season 5, after Herc left Greece to travel to Ireland.

In modern fiction and mysticism, Cernunnos has come to be seen as a deity of animals, hunting and forest lands. He is often depicted as a form of powerful NatureSpirit who watches over forests and their denizens. His relationship with human hunters can vary from being a figure who must be propitiated in order to pursue his charges to being a patron of hunters, and indeed he is often a skilled hunter himself. His nonhuman traits are often expanded to his being depicted with an entirely stag-like head, often alongside cloven hooves for feet, instead of simply being a man with antlers, and he is typically associated with deer in a broader thematic sense as well. If he's presented as a male counterpart or a spouse to someone, that someone is likely to be some sort of EarthMother figure.

See also HornedHumanoid, TheMarvellousDeer, NatureSpirit and ForestRanger. Subtrope of PublicDomainCharacter.

* ''ComicBook/TheBraveAndTheBold'': Cernunnos makes a prominent appearance in ''The Brave and the Bold: Batman and Wonder Woman''. He's a large, bearded and horned humanoid, who resides in Tir Na Nóg along with his fellow Celtic deities. He attempts to keep peace between the two factions of gods, the Fomorians and the Tuatha dé Danann, but when his efforts fall on deaf ears he turns to Diana and Batman for help and, later, to help uncover the murderer of the Formorian king Elatha. [[spoiler:While he's killed during the crossfire between the two sides, the story ends with him being reborn as a horned child.]]

** Kurnous is the elven god of animals, hunting, and the wilderness. He is typically depicted as a ten-foot-tall elf with the head and tail of a stag, and is worshipped primarily by Wood Elves and by the High Elves of the kingdoms of Avelorn and Ellyrion, which are some of the wildest and most heavily forested areas of the High Elven homeland of Ulthuan. His worshippers honor him by hunting challenging quarries, but never killing more than they must. He is believed to the husband of Isha, the goddess of life, birth and growth, and together with her to be the ancestor of all elves.
** Orion, the king of the Wood Elves, is both an avatar of Kurnous and himself based off the figure of Cernunnos. He has the antlers and hooves of a stag, rules over the wildest and most magical forest in the Old World, and often leads TheWildHunt in its roaming over surrounding lands.

* ''Theatre/TheMerryWivesOfWindsor'' provides the first known record of Herne the Hunter, a horned leader of a spectral hunt who later became conflated with Cernunnos and influenced much of his modern portrayal. Rather than appearing in person, he's part of an in-universe ghost story which describes him as the ghost of a Windsor Forest gamekeeper, whose horned specter roams about an ancient oak tree, rattling chains and causing cows to produce blood instead of milk.

* ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'': Cernunnos is the boss of the second Stratum, the primitive jungle. In this game it is a humanoid creature with massive ram-like horns rather than stag antlers.

* ''VideoGame/{{Smite}}'': Cernunnos, the Horned God, is depicted as a hairy man with the antlers, ears and legs of a stag. He's the god of the wilderness, animals and the seasons, and his moveset mostly revolves around [[GreenThumb controlling plants]], cycling through seasonal phases, and moving through the map's jungle areas. His skins modify his design to various degrees, such as by giving him goat horns or a fully cervine head.

In modern fiction and mysticism, Cernunnos has come to be seen as a deity of animals, hunting and forest lands. He is often depicted as a form of powerful NatureSpirit who watches over forests and their denizens. His relationship with human hunters can vary from being a figure who must be propitiated in order to pursue his charges to being a patron of hunters, and indeed he is often a skilled hunter himself. His nonhuman traits are often expanded to his being depicted with an entirely stag-like head, often alongside cloven hooves for feet, instead of simply being a man with antlers, and he is typically associated with deer in a broader thematic sense as well. If he's presented as a male counterpart or a spouse to someone, that someone is likely to be some sort of MotherEarth figure.