This is a Costume Trope (and specifically, a subtrope of Cool Crown) where someone with authority wears a crown or helmet made of (or made to resemble) an animal's horns. Typically the character is a royal, although warlords are fans of this fashion statement too, creating fearsome and garish horned helmets.
This is often an in-universe Invoked Trope, with characters trying to look similar to The Marvelous Deer, a Horned Humanoid or even a Beast Man. Just as often the horned animal in question is associated with authority or rulership by the wearer. As the page pic shows stags are often used, although bulls come a close second and basically any horned animal or mythical beast is fair game.
That said, demon-styled horns are a pretty big clue that the wearer is evil. Often there's an aversion where the horns are used as a sign of cuckoldry, which is traditionally represented by "putting the horns" on a man, or even literally growing horns in some plays.
Compare Horny Vikings. Contrast Sinister Deer Skull, where the antlers have a malevolent connotation instead.
Not to be confused with a "crown of thorns."
Examples:
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Comic Books
- Bone: Subverted. There's a Cosmic Keystone called the Crown of Horns, but it turns out to be neither a crown nor horned.
- The Cardboard Kingdom: The Animal Queen's crown is long and pointed, giving the impression of animal horns. The Sorceress also has a horned headdress.
- Etrigan: In his late '80s/early '90s run, Etrigan was one of several characters who fought over the rulership of Hell, which was represented by a Crown of Horns. Unlike the other examples, it most assuredly was named for the the Crown of Thorns, although similarities end there.
- Kaamelott: The Necromancer in the first album has a skull with immense deer horns (probably from a Megaloceros
) as a helmet. In the end, Perceval seizes it and wears it at the Round Table.
- Marvel Universe:
- Their version of the Norse god Loki has always worn a crown, helmet, or headdress with two horns projecting at the front, from his earliest days as an antagonist to The Mighty Thor through his appearances in various other titles. In those early appearances, the horns were quite implausibly huge; later artists were usually more restrained, although more flamboyant treatments have periodically reverted to the "infeasibly large horns" version.
- Loki's daughter Hela, goddess of death, sports a spectacular crown with a massive array of horns.
Fan Works
- Queens of Mewni:
- Festivia the Fun wore a tiara with goat horns and bunches of grapes dangling off them because her formative years were spent in Silvan, so she ended up preferring their culture, which extended to her crown.
- Diana the Huntress wore a crown with two big antlers on it.
- Your Servant, Mistress (Maleficent): Maleficent doesn't have horns, but wears a headdress that resembles horns when Diaval first meets her.
Films — Live-Action
- Barbarella: The Black Queen's crown is a single horn, which rather resembles a rhino's. The crown is likely meant to be a visual innuendo.
- Black Adam (2022): The MacGuffin is the Crown of Sabbac forged for King Akh-Ton. It's likely not a coincidence that the wearer turns into a Horned Humanoid once it's powers are invoked. However it's a plot-point that the Crown is actually supposed to be worn upside down, not with the horns pointing upward as you would assume.
- The Boy (2015): Ted wears one when he burns down the hotel with everyone inside. His own father included. It was part of an improvised Devil costume.
- Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga: Octoboss, the leader of the Mortifiers, has two curved horns on top of his black helmet. The Rock Rider chief's motorcycle helmet is likewise adorned with a pair of horns that single him out as the leader.
- The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies: The Elvenking Thranduil's circlet has highly stylized antlers.◊
- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: Mola Ram, who leads the Religion of Evil, wears one of these. It's made from a cow's skull, which is blasphemous in Hinduism (a religion that reveres cattle), just to hammer home the point that Mola Ram "betrayed Shiva."
Literature
- The Book of Three: The chief villain is the Horned King, who wears a mask made out of a human skull with great antlers rising in cruel curves. He is a warlord who is Arawn's champion and the War Leader of Annuvin.
- The Dresden Files: The Erlking, the wyldfae lord of goblins, wears a helmet adorned with a massive brace of antlers.
- Lammas Night by Katherine Kurtz: The coven's male leader wears a horned crown for rituals, to symbolize the Horned God. Religious authority rather than secular/noble, but close enough.
- Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, by Tad Williams: The king of the Sitha people used to wear a crown of witchwood in the distant past, which looked like stag's antlers. It also made Ineluki look really creepy in a drawing Simon found of him.
- The Priory of the Orange Tree: Donmata Marosa Vetalda holds court in an iron helmet made to resemble the horned head of the dragon Fýredel.
- Roxy Was Here: The Obsidian Emperor has a ring of horns around his skull, acting as a natural crown.
- A Song of Ice and Fire: Renly Baratheon's helmet has golden antlers, referencing the stag that is the sigil of his house.
- Sword at Sunset: Maglaunus the chieftain dons an antlered mask to preside as the Horned God over the Lammas feast.
- The Transcendent Green: After the Heroic Sacrifice of the Monarch of Glen Etive, Calum gains a headdress made of his antlers that he later incorporates into the Resplendent Throne. As a result, antlers made of spirit sometimes appear on his head during especially powerful or momentous acts of magic.
Live-Action TV
- Game of Thrones: House Baratheon is the royal house at the time the series begins. Baratheon kings tend to wear crowns referencing the stag of their heraldry (except Stannis, who is notably crownless). Examples include Robert, Joffrey (whose crown has stylized stag antlers), Renly (pictured, with his fancy golden crown shaped like antlers, arguably the most striking piece of headwear in the series) and Tommen. Tommen's crown of stylized stag antlers looks virtually identical to his brother's. It may even be Joffrey's, but modified to fit his head. After the death of his eldest brother Robert, Renly declares himself the rightful king, ahead of his "nephew" Joffrey and older brother Stannis. Renly's antler crown is a valuable means to create an image of legitimacy. It was chosen as one of The Coolest Helmets, Hats and Headpieces in Science Fiction and Fantasy by io9.com.
- In the prequel series A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Lyonel Baratheon has his Lord Paramount crown fashioned into the shape of an impressive rack of antlers.
- Loki (2021) has alternate versions of Loki wear crowns in various styles, including horned ones.
- The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Queen Míriel of Numenor sports a crown made up of two bunches of twisting golden horns.
- Robin of Sherwood: The pagan forest-god Herne the Hunter wears some impressive horns.
- True Detective: The ritualistic murder that opens the events involves a dead woman posed nude wearing a crown of deer antlers. It appears to be part of some sort of paganistic sacrifice.
- Yellowjackets: The unidentified character who acts as the leader of a group girls who survived a plane crash in the wilderness wears a headdress made of deer antlers, and is referred to as “the Antler Queen.”
Myths and Religion
- Mesopotamian gods were typically depicted wearing crowns shaped like bulls' horns.
- Egyptian Mythology: Hathor, in keeping with her connection to cattle, is often depicted like this. In between the horns is a solar disc, sometimes encircled by a cobra.
Tabletop Games
- Forgotten Realms: The Crown of Horns is an artifact from the ancient magocracy of Netheril that was enchanted by then-god of death Myrkul, it consists of a silver circlet ringed by four bone horns. A thorough Artifact of Doom, as it holds what's left of Myrkul following his death in the Time of Troubles and tends to drive the wearer to evil (or insane in Laeral Silverhand's case).
- Warhammer:
- Orcs/Orks/Orruks often wear the very large horns of various creatures, usually to show that they've killed something even bigger and meaner than themselves. In Warhammer 40,000, Orks also put giant tusks or stamped metal shapes of same on their vehicles... including spacecraft. According to some sources, these "giant teef" serve the same purpose as the Imperial Gellar Field: they prevent daemons from boarding the ship during Warp transit due to some combination of orkish gestalt psychic powers and sheer intimidation. Of course, if daemons actually succeed in boarding, the orks view as a pleasant interruption to their daily life.
- Some Chaos artifacts take this form as well (for much the same reasons as the Orks), along with the usual horned helmets.
Video Games
- Artifact: Emperor Galanius, who rules over Stonehall and surrounding regions, "wears" a pair of levitating fiery bull horns. In-game it is featured as Vesture of the Tyrant, with three copies per deck permitted and heroes equipped with protect their lane's tower with flat-damage reducing Armor and get respawn time reduction, on top of Armor of their own.
- Diablo IV Most head armor for Druids is made from animal horns to symbolize their ties to nature.
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: The Jagged Crown is made from dragons' teeth, which are as large as most animals' horns and serve the same ornamental purpose.
- Hyrule Conquest: The Kokiri Chief wears a big, antler-adorned helmet.
- Kirby's Return to Dream Land: The Master Crown takes on a much more elaborate, twisted antler-like form for the Magolor Soul EX fight.
- Total War: Pharaoh:
- Amenmesse wears a golden crown with horns as a sign of his status as Vizier of Kush.
- Suppiluliuma II wears the crown of the Hittite kings, a tall bronze cone adorned with three pairs of bull's horns. His rival Kurunta instead wears a hat adorned with bronze antlers to reinforce his image as the Stag God incarnate.
- Adad-Shuma-Usur wears a Mesopotamian horned cap.
- Menelaus and Agamemnon, carrying over from A Total War Saga: TROY, wear their two- and four-horned helmets respectively.
- Warcraft: The Horde's first Warchief, Blackhand the Destroyer, wore an antlered helmet.
- There are a number of head armor pieces adorned with antlers that players can obtain, such as the Headdress of the Verdant Circle.
- WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos: Arthas' father the King of Lordaeron had a crown that was adorned with (probably) dragon's teeth to resemble as horns. Kind of counts.
- There are a number of head armor pieces adorned with antlers that players can obtain, such as the Headdress of the Verdant Circle.
Webcomics
- Roommates: The Erlkönig wears an (Awesome, but Impractical looking) antler crown with his fae armorc.
Real Life
- In ancient Mesopotamia, bull horns (sometimes more than two) on a crown were a sign of divinity. So the "god"-kings wore them, at least according to relief sculptures of them. And the lamassu and gods wore them on their helms in visual artwork, as well.
- In formal heraldry, the representation of the crowns belonging to Dukes and Kings carry abstract spikes which are thought to be the last survival of animal horns. (Each crown in heraldry has its own formal, rigidly defined, shape which clearly denotes the arms-holder's rank in the social order — e.g. that of a baronet is fairly perfunctory, but that for a Duke is highly ornate.) The horned helmets of ancient Celts and Vikings — which today are thought as only ever having had ceremonial rather than practical use — are also thought of as having been marks of the wearer's status, so that only a warlord or high dignitary was entitled to wear horns.
- The French Marquis de Montespan (less than thrilled that King Louis XIV chose his wife as his mistress) added huge stag horns to his heraldry, eventually retreating to his domain and refusing to leave.
- Also, check out use of horned headdresses in North American Indian society — it's probably no accident that Sitting Bull wore bison horns in his headdress. Apache shamans wore ceremonial antlers, for instance.
- Siberian shamans from certain tribal groups also have a crown-like iron headpiece, called an "orgay", which is worn over the cloth parts of their headdress, and is essentially the frame of a helmet with antlers on it.
- Secondary wives of Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs wore circlets adorned with the horned heads of ibex and gazelle, symbolizing their grace and beauty. Great Wives wore a tall crown consisting of a pair of cow's horns cradling a solar disk (in imitation of the goddess Hathor), and embellished with ostrich plumes and as many ureaii (cobra heads) as could be fitted on. Only the gods know how the poor woman kept all that balanced on her head.