The Horned God as Environmental Figure in Anglophone Fantasy Fiction and Live Action Role-Play

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to explore the Horned God’s role as an environmental figure in modern paganism, fantasy fiction and Live Action Role-Play, while acknowledging that these three fields are interconnected. The Horned God is a modern pagan deity popularised by ‘grandmother of Wicca’, Margaret Murray, and associated with wild nature and chthonic forces. He is a palimpsest deity which draws inspiration from a rich variety of historical, archaeological, folkloric and literary sources. Despite his popularity in esoteric writing and in fantasy fiction, the Horned God does not enjoy sustained academic attention; a disparity that this thesis seeks to address by tracing the deity’s origins and development until present day. It then examines the Horned God’s role as a nature deity and a liminal figure between humanity, animality and divinity, arguing that the combination of these two features makes him useful to think with about human relationships with the environment. Furthermore, this thesis aims to draw attention to speculative fiction and fantasy role-play as fruitful sites for the study, among other subjects, of popular environmentalist sentiment.