Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/102

86 On the Rheims monument Cernunnos has below him, as we have already seen, a stag and an ox, while the Saintes monument has on it several bucrania: both stag and ox were probably animals sacred to the god, and I am inclined to see a reference to him in the bull represented on the western face of the Gallo-Roman altar in Paris. It bears no god's image or name, but the figure of a bull, with three cranes standing on him, one on his head, one on his withers, and a third on his rump, while above are to be read, which doubtless mean a 'three-craned bull.' The beast cannot be regarded as exactly representing the god, as he is adorned with a dorsuale, which marks him out as a victim to be sacrificed: the cranes were probably viewed in the same light, but it is right to add that their number was presumably not a matter of accident; for the idea of a triad appears to have played as important a rôle in ancient Gaul as in Ireland and Wales. Now with respect to Jupiter, the bull and the birds occupy on the block exactly the place which they should in case they referred to Cernunnos; and the reason why his victims take up the room where his own figure might be expected, is probably to be sought in some religious scruple or artistic difficulty which prevented the sculptor from portraying this god, who was so unlike the others as