Today’s ancient Gaelic festival of Beltane celebrates the renewing energies of spring and the coming summer. As Brigit Anna McNeill so beautifully reminds us, Beltane “honours the life force in all wild ones, the fertility of the wild, and the medicine that is abundant at this time. Beltane means bright fire, which for me is the fire that ignites life.”
Right: A detail of “Encounter,” Sandra SanTara’s beautiful portrait of Cernunnos and Pan (2017).
As I’ve noted previously, I’m drawn to Cernunnos because of what he represents for humanity – and for men in particular. In terms of the latter, what the Antlered One represents stands in stark contrast to the vision of men and masculinity that is generally put forward by the patriarchal Abrahamic religions. Neo-pagan and eco-feminist scholar and author Starhawk sums up this difference succinctly in the following excerpt from her book The Spiral Dance.
If a man had been created in the Horned God’s image he would be free to be wild without being cruel, angry without being violent, sexual without being coercive, spiritual without being unsexed, and truly able to love.
I’ve also previously noted that my interest in the Pagan spiritual path and, in particular, the figures of both Cernunnos and Pan, has introduced me to a much broader and inclusive understanding of the “sacred masculine,” one that welcomes and celebrates queer incarnations of both masculinity and union with the Sacred. And for that I’m very grateful.
So with out further ado, here is what The Wiccan Chef says about these two gods, these two archetypal figures.
He sits in stillness, antlers crowned with vines, a serpent in one hand, a torc in the other. The animals know him. The earth breathes with him. He is the heartbeat beneath the forest floor. He is Cernunnos.
He laughs in a pitch that startles the wind, piping melodies that twist into the marrow. His hooves kick sparks. His lust is law. He is the ecstatic scream at the edge of reason. He is Pan.
They rise from different soil – one Celtic, one Greek – but their magic echoes through every shadowed glen and sunlit grove. For witches, pagans, and hedge-walkers, they are not just gods. They are the living wild, the Greenman’s shadow twin, the horned consorts of freedom and ecstasy.
The Horned God Archetype
The Horned God appears across cultures as a figure of power, wilderness, virility, and death-rebirth. He is not evil – as demonized by post-Christian narratives – but sacred, sensual, and sovereign.
Cernunnos, the so-called “Horned One,” is a mysterious figure whose name survives only on the Pillar of the Boatmen (1st century CE) and a few scattered inscriptions. But his image – cross-legged, antlered, surrounded by beasts – is ancient and magnetic. He governs life force, fertility, animal kinship, wealth, and the underworld (Green, 1992). In Wicca, he often embodies the divine masculine in union with the Goddess: not dominant, but equal and entwined.
Pan, meanwhile, is wildness incarnate. A rustic god of Arcadia, he ruled over shepherds, flocks, music, and lust (Burkert, 1985). His pipes could drive mortals mad, his presence spark “panic” – named after him. But he was also a protector of nature, a friend to nymphs, and a symbol of unashamed embodiment. He is freedom without permission.
Together, they form a divine polarity of stillness and motion, watchfulness and frenzy, ritual and release.
Wild Magic, Forest Power
In witchcraft, the wild is not a metaphor. It is a teacher, a temple, and a force. Horned gods guide witches who work with animals, herbs, primal energy, and deep earth wisdom.
Cernunnos is honored in solstice rites, underworld journeys, and abundance workings. His presence is grounding – rooted in the breath of the forest, in sacred cycles of birth and decay. Witches call on him for stability, connection, and animal kinship (McCoy, 1994).
Pan brings the ecstatic: rites of dancing, sex magic, laughter, wine, and revelation. His presence is invoked in hedge-crossing, trance states, music, and liminal magic. He is the lord of wild abandon, the guardian of sacred sensuality. He tears down the civilized mask – and in doing so, reveals the divine.
Witches walking the forest path may feel both at once:
The silence of the stag. The shout of the goat.
The deep root and the wild leap.
The Witch and the Horned God
For many witches – especially queer, neurodivergent, or eclectically spiritual – Cernunnos and Pan offer alternative models of masculinity: not controlling, but connected. Not patriarchal, but primal, creative, nurturing, and free.
They remind us that masculinity can be sacred without being dominant. That the body is holy. That desire is not sin – it’s spellcraft.
These gods are for those who speak with trees. Who run barefoot. Who craft with horn, bone, and leaf. Who know that the divine doesn’t only live in light – it pulses in shadow, too.
They are the Witch-Fathers – wild, watching, welcoming.
Mythic Echoes in the Here and Now
So what do Cernunnos and Pan offer today?
They invite us to remember the wildness we’ve buried. To unlearn shame. To move our bodies, howl our truth, and touch the moss with reverence.
They teach that magic is not only words whispered over candles. It is also sweat. Music. Laughter. Sex. Dirt under the nails.
They remind us that to walk the green path is to walk with life – not above it.
And that the horned ones are still waiting.
Not to rule.
But to dance.
References
Green, Miranda J. Symbol and Image in Celtic Religious Art. Routledge, 1992.
Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion. Harvard University Press, 1985.
McCoy, Edain. The Sabbats: A Witch’s Approach to Living the Old Ways. Llewellyn, 1994.
Conway, D.J. Celtic Magic. Llewellyn, 1990.
Hutton, Ronald. The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Oxford University Press, 1999.
Starhawk. The Spiral Dance. HarperOne, 1979.
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
BELTANE
• Casting Off the Darkness and Celebrating the Light
• A Time of Hope and Renewal
• Celebrating the Sheer Exuberance of May
• Beltane and the Fire Within
• Beltane and the Reclaiming of Spirit
• Beltane Morning Light
• The “People Between”
PAGAN SPIRITUALITY
• Ed Simon on Why We Need a Pagan Theology
• Phillip Clark on the Magi as Archetypes of “Witchy Faith”
• A Day to Celebrate the Survival of the Old Ways
• At Hallowtide, Pagan Thoughts on Restoring Our World and Our Souls
• The Pagan Roots of All Saints Day
• "A Dark Timelessness and Stillness Surrounds Her Wild Abandonment”
• Awakening the Wild Soul
• Thomas Moore on the Circling of Nature as the Best Way to Find Our Substance
• The Mysticism of Trees
• Mistwalking
• Holy Encounters Where Two Worlds Meet
• The Prayer Tree
CERNUNNOS
• Beloved and Antlered
• Cernunnos
• Integrating Cernunnos, “Archetype of Sensuality and the Instinctual World”
• Cernunnos in Autumn Light
• The Devil We (Think) We Know
PAN
• Biophilia, the God Pan, and a Baboon Named Scott
• The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
• Pan’s Labyrinth: Critiquing the Cult of Unquestioning Obedience
And at The Wild Reed’s brother site, The Leveret, see:
• The Divine Masculine Principle
• In the Image of the Horned God
• I Call to Cernunnos
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