Horned God - Fantasy and Science Fiction

Fantasy and Science Fiction

In 1908's The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, in Chapter 7, "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn", Ratty and Mole meet a mystical horned being, powerful, fearsome and kind. Grahame's work was a significant part of the cultural milieu which stripped the Greek god Pan of his cultural identity in favour of an unnamed, generic horned deity which led to Murray's thesis of historical origins.

Outside of works that predate the publication of Murray's thesis, horned god motifs and characters appear in fantasy literature that draws upon her work and that of her followers.

In the novel Childhood's End (1953) by Arthur C. Clarke, all humans have a collective premonition, also described as a memory of the future, of horned aliens which arrive to usher in a new phase of human evolution. The collective subconscious image of the horned aliens is what accounts for mankind's image of the devil or Satan. This theme is also explored in the Doctor Who story The Dæmons in 1971, where the local superstitions around a landmark known as The Devil's Hump prove to be based on reality, as aliens from the planet Dæmos have been affecting man's progress over the millennia and the Hump actually contains a spacecraft. The only Dæmon to appear is a classic interpretation of a horned satyr-like being with hooves.

In the critically acclaimed and influential 1950s TV series created by Nigel Kneale, Quatermass and the Pit, depictions of supernatural horned entities, with specific reference to prehistoric cave-art and shamanistic horned head-dress are revealed to be a "race-memory" of psychic Martian grasshoppers, manifested at the climax of the film by a fiery horned god.

Murray's theories has been seen to have had influence on Blood on Satan's Claw (1971), where a murderous female-led cult worships a horned deity named Behemoth.

Marion Zimmer Bradley, who acknowledges the influence of Murray, uses the figure of the "horned god" in her feminist fantasy transformation of Arthurinian myth, Mists of Avalon (1984), and portrays ritualistic incest between King Arthur as the representative of the horned god and his sister Morgaine as the "spring maiden".

Also, in the popular video game Morrowind, its expansion Bloodmoon has a plot enemy known as Hircine, the Daedric god of the Hunt, who appears as a horned man with the face of a deer skull. He condemned his "hounds" (werewolves) to walk the mortal ground during the Bloodmoon until a champion defeats him or Bloodmoon falls. He also appears as a horned wolf or bear when in combat.