Cornucopia - Pagan Symbol of Abundance

Horn of Plenty’s Roots are in Ancient Greece Paganism

Nov 20, 2009
Jill Stefko

Cornucopia Symbol of Plenty - Thanksgiving Clip Art

The Cornucopia is best known as a Thanksgiving centerpiece. Straw, ceramic and edible ones are filled with fruits, nuts and vegetables or treats made in their shapes.

The word "cornucopia" is derived from two Latin words, “cornu,” meaning "horn" and “copia,” meaning "plenty."

The Horn of Plenty, shaped like a curved goat’s horn, overflows with fruit, vegetables and nuts, symbolizes abundance. It became associated with several deities, especially the Greek Tyche and the Roman, Fortuna, Goddess of riches and abundance, Greek Dionysus Roman Bacchus, Gods of Fertility, Wine and Growth, Greek Demeter and Roman Ceres, goddesses of agriculture and Greek Zeus and Roman Jupiter the Kings of the Deities.

The cornucopia is also a symbol of giving thanks for the abundance of food earth has provided. AmerIndians had baskets shaped in forms of upside-down tornados, filled with crops signifying harvest’s abundance and giving thanks to the deities.

Zeus and the Cornucopia Legend

When the Greek God was born, his mother Rhea sent him to Crete to be cared for, to hide him from his father, Cronus, who would have eaten him. Melisseus, King of Crete, had several daughters who tended to Zeus. They hung him in a cradle from a tree branch, so that he couldn’t be found in heaven, on earth or in the sea.

Amalthea, their nanny goat, provided milk. As a gift to thank them, Zeus broke off one of the animal’s horns, filled it with harvested crops and bestowed the horn with the power of being filled with whatever its owner desired. The cornucopia became a symbol of prosperity and signified that its owner would never starve.

Greek Cornucopia Legend - Hercules and Achelous

The man and River God were rivals wrestling for the beautiful Dejanira’s, daughter of King Oeneus of Calydon’s affections. Achelous was able to shapeshift into a snake, then into a bull in order to gain the advantage.

While he was in the form of a bull, Hercules tore off one of his horns and in doing so, diverted the Achelous River’s flow. The Naiads, water-nymphs, treated the horn as a sacred object and filled it with fragrant flowers. The Goddess of Plenty, Copia, later adopted the horn as her symbol. Later, the Roman legend was that the Goddess Abundantia embraced the horn, calling it cornucopia.

Jews and Cornucopias

The cornucopia plays a role in Jewish culture as well.

Cornucopias were engraved on small objects including coins, rings and amulets and small objects and used as seals. Cornucopias were incorporated into the architecture of buildings. They’re decorations during Sukkot, the nine day harvest festival. There’s speculation that the Horn of Plenty became a symbol for ancient Jews because of the legendary abundance of the land of milk and honey.

Cornucopias in America

They were used in advertisements designed to entice settlers to the New World. Illustrations of Horns of Plenty, fields filled with grains and vegetables, fruit trees and other symbols of abundance drawn on posters were meant to appeal to people struggling to survive in the Old World.

Today, they are centerpieces on Thanksgiving feast tables and serve as door hangings in autumn holiday décor. Cardboard cornucopias overflowing with flora hang on school walls and windows as children are taught about the first Thanksgiving celebration, with the Mayflower’s Captain Miles Standish, Pilgrims and Wampanoagans Samoset and Squanto who taught the settlers survival skills and Chief Massasoit attending the feast.