Horns

Horns often signify power or a wild/animalistic nature. Current thinking is that the prevalence of horned figures arises out of respect for the importance of various horned animals in hunting and agriculture.

The first crowns were made of horns. And in many languages both words are close, e.g. Corona/Cornus. When humans were hunter-gatherers, horns were a symbol of a hunter's bravery. And as people began to breed livestock, horns also became a means to show off one's wealth.

The horns are just one of the many prehistoric symbols, connected to the all-including great goddess whose traces can be found all over Europe and beyond.

Behind those symbols lies a key, a pathway to what some call enlightenment.

It is very important to understand also that our ancestors used the symbols they had in the world/their daily life around them to make their stories and legends.

The horns symbolize the eternal cycle of life (and death and reincarnation).

I. e. The ram was one of the holy animals of the goddess, also symbolizing the uterus.

In the crescent form the horns symbolize (among other things) the moon, the lunar cycle/calendar and so fertility of the female (the giver of new live) etc. etc.

Also horns can symbolize the tree of life, a horn growing from a stag i.e. In the northern hemisphere hunter and gatherers followed the deer mother (giver of life).

Horns can be also found in burial mounts (the womb of the goddess where you were reborn). Horns were used as a shovel (to bury the dead and also to reenter the the burial mounts for reincarnation rites).

Various pagan religions have a "horned god." The perception of horns being "evil" is due to Christianity's attempt to vilify the nature religions of the pagan people. In the middle ages, depictions of the devil and demons often featured horns, and even the word "pagan" itself is a derogatory term regarding people beyond the city walls i.e Peasants, bumpkins, farmers, and other such people who were likely to practice nature based spiritualities and traditions.

Worth mentioning though different in tone from the rest of this post is that in medieval, (and even in relatively recent) times a horn gesture with both index fingers pointing from one's head was also an insult which meant you were calling the person you were pointing the "horns" to a cuckold. 

This sentiment also echoed through a lot of literature, notably Shakespeare. In the art of the times too, men who were drawn with horns were also symbolically marked as a cuckold. There are a few theories on the origin of this, but one theory is that a horned beast cannot see its own horns, and husbands are often the last to know about their wives infidelity. 

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