Open-form lamp with twisted handle and bull's head finial (bronze)
La Tène culture (3-1st c. BCE)
Switzerland
(Private collection)
By the light of this ancient Keltic lamp, the modern witch sees the shadow of the Horned God.
Look closely. What do you see?
With a little imagination, one may read this small (length: 9½") bronze lamp as a bull lying on his back: the lamp's bowl is the bull's body, its twisted handle and decorative finial the bull's neck and head.
Ex tauro, lux: from the bull, light.
Known as Lighber, the light-bearer, the god of the witches is understood by his votaries as the Enlightener, He Who Gives Understanding to his people, Wisdom to the Wise. Between His Horns burns the flame of illumination. If we read this god, Lord of the Beasts, as the collective body of all animal life on planet Earth, this understanding articulates the rise of consciousness, in which material existence gains self-awareness.
To the witch's eye, this ancient artifact embodies this understanding.
Although described in a recent auctioneer's catalog as an oil lamp, in all likelihood this lamp (given its Alpine origin) was fueled by animal fat instead, even—rather poignantly, one thinks—by tallow (beef fat).
From the bull, light.