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On horns and demons and angels and goats
Jun. 13th, 2006 09:31 pmOn 06/06/06, about a dozen friends met for a birthday dinner. In honour of the unique date, we all wore horns and decorated our glasses with little plastic devils. We were playful demons eating steaks and French toast at a suburban IHOP.
The fallen angels are the tainted creatures of horror stories and nightmares, and, simultaneously, the honourable rebels. Even some Christian writers have had trouble not making Satan sound courageous and bold:
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than hee
Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n.*
Most people no longer hold supernatural beings responsible for the world's evil; the fallen angels may now be fallen heroes, ready to become noble and rise again. We like our heroes to be a little dirty. It is sexy to be redeemed.
The truly evil and the merely naughty conflates as "sin". A sexy girl-demon is called a "succubus", never mind how scary a true succubus would be.
"His horns are bigger then mine," one boy whines playfully.
"He does have a lovely horn, doesn't he," purrs the girlfriend, toying with the tip.
"At work, I have to hide my tail down my pants... it gets so uncomfortable. It's nice to let it all hang out," says one of our hornless guests, who was wearing a red devil-tail.
"I get the weirdest looks when I wear my horns out," giggles one girl, her relatively discrete horns peeking out from her hair, "I love seeing the double-takes."
"Let's go into Walmart after dinner! I wanna shop like a demon," someone else chimes in.
I once heard that all angels originally had horns; that's why the angels who fell had them too. As the rebels fell, their wings were burned away, but their horns remained. The horns of the heavenly chorus faded away in the popular imagination, leaving them only on the demonic citizens of the underworld.
Horns on demons; horns on ancient gods… not romanticized power, like that of the lion, but the down and dirty power of goats. It is pride and stubbornness, sometimes in the face of a world that doesn't care for us at all.
*Satan's speech in Paradise Lost, by John Milton.
The fallen angels are the tainted creatures of horror stories and nightmares, and, simultaneously, the honourable rebels. Even some Christian writers have had trouble not making Satan sound courageous and bold:
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than hee
Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n.*
Most people no longer hold supernatural beings responsible for the world's evil; the fallen angels may now be fallen heroes, ready to become noble and rise again. We like our heroes to be a little dirty. It is sexy to be redeemed.
The truly evil and the merely naughty conflates as "sin". A sexy girl-demon is called a "succubus", never mind how scary a true succubus would be.
"His horns are bigger then mine," one boy whines playfully.
"He does have a lovely horn, doesn't he," purrs the girlfriend, toying with the tip.
"At work, I have to hide my tail down my pants... it gets so uncomfortable. It's nice to let it all hang out," says one of our hornless guests, who was wearing a red devil-tail.
"I get the weirdest looks when I wear my horns out," giggles one girl, her relatively discrete horns peeking out from her hair, "I love seeing the double-takes."
"Let's go into Walmart after dinner! I wanna shop like a demon," someone else chimes in.
I once heard that all angels originally had horns; that's why the angels who fell had them too. As the rebels fell, their wings were burned away, but their horns remained. The horns of the heavenly chorus faded away in the popular imagination, leaving them only on the demonic citizens of the underworld.
Horns on demons; horns on ancient gods… not romanticized power, like that of the lion, but the down and dirty power of goats. It is pride and stubbornness, sometimes in the face of a world that doesn't care for us at all.
*Satan's speech in Paradise Lost, by John Milton.
