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Cernunnos is the deer-antlered god with a humanoid body in Celtic myth. There is no one particular myth concerning him, for only his image remains. The cer part of his name, relating to his antlers, means ‘horned’. He is found primarily in sculpted statues and reliefs from ancient Gaul (modern France), but the clearest image is found on the silver votive cauldron, the Gundestrup Cauldron, discovered in Denmark which shows him seated, wearing a stripy close-fitting tunic and trousers, with a royal torc or neck-ring about his neck. In one hand he holds up another torc while in the other he holds a ram-headed snake, as if to show that he combines the animal instincts of the beasts and the cultured wisdom of humans. Cernunnos is shown surrounded by many beasts, including a stag.

In Welsh myth, such a figure is shown as the guardian of animals, a threshold guardian between our world and the other. Visitors to the Otherworld have to answer his challenges before they are allowed in. Like Herne, leader of the wild hunt, Cernunnos may admonish and punish those who injure those under his protection. He is a Lord of the Animals. Julius Caesar speculated that Cernunnos was the same as the Roman Dis Pater, god of the departed spirits of the underworld. Traces of his cult remain in the legends surrounding the Breton saint, Korneli, who is a patron of horned beasts. Indo-European scholars have related him to Pasupati, the Hindu Lord of the Beasts.