66: Horned Bronze Age depictions, Vikings, clowns and their casinos & connected mythical discussions

Written and published by Linden Alexander Pentecost, published on the 14^th of July 2025 from the UK. Published only on the www.bookofdunbarra.co.uk website (the website currently in front of you). This article is completely separate from (and contains different content from) all of my other publications, including online articles, ebooks and print books, despite that there is some crossover in topics. No AI was used in writing or creating this article, nor is it used in any of my other publications. This article contains interconnected text, covering many topics, primarily focusing around the stallo and their horns, the possibility of a separate pre-Viking “horned culture” being confused with Vikings, Bronze Age rock art depicting horned beings, the Scythians, the whole Nephilim and Clowns theory and a personal vision, and a conversation about casinos full of mystery, which encouraged me to write about this; and many other points and topics in relation to this, including a list of cultures, small list of horned rock art sites, and a short quote from a story in the Finnish book Myytillisiä Tarinoita. Nothing in this article has been discussed before nor has this article ever been published before, despite that I cover different aspects of these topics in other publications. I have also never discussed this vision before. I hope that this article is an interesting read. This article contains 3378 words, making it one of this website's longer online articles. I have never discussed the Nephilim and Clowns theory before, to my knowledge, but have discussed giants an awful, awful lot. Note that Paul Stobbs is to my knowledge the person who popularised the “Nephilim looked like clowns” theory. Note that parts of my discussions in this article pertain to a dream or vision, and other parts include other spiritual observations about why I decided to write this, casinos, and things pertaining to amber light.

 

The Sámi people of Northern Scandinavia, describe in their traditions a being known as a stallo, or stállu in Northern Sámi. I have discussed these people many times previously, including in recent publications, but in this article in front of you I will discuss other aspects to this, and connect them to things I have previously discussed in detail but in a different way, and to other topics.

The stallo is described by the Sámi as a cannibal, an iron-wielding giant, generally an enemy of the Sámi peoples. I have discussed much about their background and mysteries elsewhere, so I will go onto more specific new details. What I did not know until now is that the stallo is sometimes described as having horns. I have written much about horned depictions of beings previously, horned ancestors, created much art of horned women etc, but did not make this connection with the stallo. Why exactly are they described as horned?

Well we know that in the Bronze Age “horned” helmets were used in Scandinavia, most likely for ritual contexts. The Scythians also used horned helmets from time to time*, and there are even obscure legends from Ukraine about horned humans who once lived there.

So this could be indicative in some way that the “stallo”, whether he had physical horns or not, might be in some way connected to these Bronze Age traditions which used horned helmets to emulate and depict some kind of being or ancestor; whether that was an animal or actually meant to be a depiction of mythological horned humans from long ago?

In an interesting way this also ties into a lot of my work, including that surrounding the Lofoten Islands, where for example horned humans or gods are depicted in cave paintings on the island of Trenyken, one of the outermost Lofoten Islands.

The stallo are more associated with upland areas of Northern Scandinavia, and less so, to my knowledge, with the Lofoten Islands. But I find it hard to believe that the stallo is not in some way connected to these horned ancestors depicted in the cave on Trenyken. Other depictions of horned humans, sometimes described as horned giants, are found in other parts of Northern Europe. These rock paintings are generally thought to be Bronze Age, which also makes sense, given the context of horn-equipped helmets known from that time.

So essentially we seem to be discussing a Bronze Age tradition of mythical horned ancestors, associated with particular magical places like the island of Trenyken (the magic of which I have discussed a lot previously), and its possible association with the stallo. But here is another interesting thing. The stallo is depicted as similar to a Viking berserker warrior. Whilst I am confident that the stallo people and the Bronze Age peoples in question were neither Norse nor Sámi, is it possible that the Vikings maintained an “inner culture” within their society which was specifically connected to these horned ancestors and to the rituals of the Bronze Age? And are the Viking beserkers a part of this, and are the stallo (when discussing them as a physical culture in terms of stallotomter sites for instance) a connection to this culture that remained independent of Norse society?

The notion that the Vikings themselves used horned helmets is largely discredited. But it seems that a usage of horned helmets may have ritually continued into the Viking period, perhaps specifically connected to the, by then corrupted beserker magic associated with these perhaps much more peaceful Bronze Age peoples. But it is interesting how Europe as a whole seems to have so many concepts of horned ancestors, horned demons or gods connected to the sea. I have discussed a lot on this previously, but is it possible that sometimes our collective memory about Vikings, and beserkers, is actually misidentifying an even older culture with Viking culture?

The same can be said of many aspects of Viking culture, as I am continually discussing and publishing about. Take for example a certain Viking burial site on the Isle of Man, the ritual practices around Viking ship burials seem (this also goes into the subject of “giants” on the Isle of Man, which I am touching on in a Kindle book series, one of which is already published) separate from Norse culture by and large, and in some ways share more in common with Scythian burial practices. Why is this so? I honestly think it likely that what we call Vikings are indeed several distinct but connected things. A rough summary could go like this:

.Danes – ancient pre-Viking peoples that connect Britain and Ireland to Denmark and other parts of Europe (much discussed in other publications).

.Norse – the Indo-Europeanised peoples speaking primarily Nordic languages in recorded history as their lingua franca, but who are culturally and linguistically very diverse, in fact.

.Vikings – the noun attached to the concept of particular Scandinavian-orientated culture and language as attested in the Middle Ages as interacting with Britain and elsewhere through sea-trade, royal marriages and land ownership.

.The Viking chiefs, beserker and older “horned people” culture – the ancient, pre-Viking central ritual culture centered around Scythian-type ship-burials, this culture was likely the one that struck most fear into peoples’ hearts and minds in the Middle Ages, but it is I think in fact much, much older than that.

 

Of course this is just one interpretation and does indeed contradict with some of my other interpretations, but nevertheless for this article it shall serve as a way of looking at things, for this article. Note this topic of the Isle of Man also goes into the subject of “giants” on the Isle of Man, which I am touching on in a Kindle book series, one of which is already published, although I have not discussed the ship burial in the Kindle book in this Cumbria-Isle of Man series I have already published (each book in the series pertains to both Cumbria and the Isle of Man.)

A person who runs the Facebook page “Rock Art Finland” told me in a comment that they think the depictions of horned beings in Northern European rock art are in fact not depicting horned beings, but human animal hybrids with long ears. This is not the exact quote of what the person said, but a summary of it. Perhaps I could summarise them in this case as being essentially ancient “furries”. However I am inclined to disagree with this. Firstly because of the evidence I have already gone over, with regard to horned helmets, the stallo, and legends of horned humanoids in Ukraine. Secondly, this Northern European rock art seems to only depict specific anamorphic humanoid forms. There are also humanoids depicted with long faces and long heads sometimes, but the “horned” beings seem very specific. Often it appears in fact that they do not possess a head but rather simply two horns, or antennae perhaps. Could this link to the notion of trolls sometimes possessing more than one head? Furthermore, and perhaps most poignant, is that these horned humanoids are often depicted as being larger in stature than the other horn-less humans depicted in these motifs. This would seem to imply that these horned, or antennae-bearing ancestors were of giant stature compared to the size of ordinary humans, which again would tie into legends about the stallo, who are considered of giant stature, and who sometimes had horns. But ultimately, the person who commented on the Rock Art Finland page, does have a point. And in a more general way, these beings resemble somewhat the insectoid beings depicted in other parts of the world on rock art, with two antennae. Although in some of these cases, even when it come to examples from the Americas, I could argue that sometimes what are depicted are more like “horns” than antennae, and indeed some of these other depictions also seem to indicate that these beings were giant in stature. Apart from the examples at Trenyken, some other examples of horned humanoid depictions can be found at:

 

.Astuvansalmi rock art, near Mikkeli, Finland
.The Tanum Rock paintings in Bohuslän in Southwest Sweden

.Nämforsen Rock Paintings in Näsåker, in Ångermanland in Norrland, Northern Sweden. An example at Näsåker shows an example of a horned humanoid that closely resembles how stallo are sometimes depicted.

.Shalabolinskaya Pisanitsa rock paintings in Russia. The location of these examples proves that these motives in rock painting are not just Scandinavian or pre-Nordic in nature. A particularly interesting example from Shalabolinskaya Pisanitsa shows a giant, horned humanoid, alongside a boat of ordinary sized humans, with only one of the ordinary sized humans having horns.

 

Of course there are many other examples of such sites, some of which I have commented on before. I also want to mention briefly that the notion of ”horned humans” may crossover into the topic of tentacle-headed humanoids, something I have discussed an awful lot elsewhere. For example some of the mythology surrounding draugar in Northern Norway indicates that they have seaweed (tentacles?) instead of a head. And some of the depictions of horned humanoids do look as though the figures do not have horns on their heads as such, but have horns instead of a head. Very peculiar.

On the “nephilim looked like clowns” theme in relation to this, and a personal vision I experienced and related discussions:
One interesting thing that this subject leaks into, is this theory that the ancestral nephilim giants, or rather, this group of beings or ancestors in a more general way, are being depicted in our present culture when people dress up as clowns. The giants of mythology from many parts of the world, are very often associated with having pale skin, and red hair. We can see this being depicted in western clown costumes, and this aspect of giantness being depicted in how clowns sometimes walk on stilts for entertainment. We also look at early depictions of certain tribes in the Americas, and early depictions of cannibal tribes, and often find these same motifs and forms of makeup being found as very similar to how modern clowns tend to dress. We also have “sacred clowns” in many cultures, like the heyoka of Sioux peoples; and I do not think the heyoka are evil in any way. And so in this regard, I disagree with the notion that these giants, nephilim or clowns are “evil” or depicting a kind of purely evil deity. That some of these giants were corrupted and did bad things, I can agree on, but we have to keep in mind that these beings are not described as being like us, and it is easier for us to judge than to try and grasp what we don’t yet know or understand. Let us also take briefly take note how this symbolism of “horns” crosses over into the clown-style hats which often seem to depict two horns or, tentacles, upon the head.

A few years ago I had a kind of strange and disturbing vision as I was falling to sleep. I was staying on a street in Helsinki called Annankatu, a street known for its old buildings, some of them thought to be haunted. When I walk down Annankatu I get an impression or feeling of there being “more” to these buildings beneath the surface, and I wonder if there are some haunted places beneath the street.

Anyway, as I was falling asleep in a room above Annankatu, but was not yet asleep, I saw a vivid picture in my mind’s eye. I saw, Annankatu, but not through ordinary vision, but through that greyer, darker kind of vision that one tends to experience reality with, when observing it from their mind’s eye/third eye. Colours, sounds, and light, seem slowed, to have different motion, and one appears to see what would otherwise not be seen.

Specifically I saw the walkway down Annankatu as it went over a road at a crossroads, and this was literally the path I had physically walked about half an hour earlier, before going to lie down and attempt sleep. And upon this path, as though following my very own footsteps, something walked, a humanoid figure, about 8 to 9 feet tall, quite thin, with an awkward posture, wearing a tall clown’s hat, and wearing a kind of cloak with clown-like patterns upon it. I do think to some degree that this vision was influenced by a scene in the film Moonraker, when the character Jaws dresses as a giant clown. What I saw was similar to that, but the figure I saw was thinner, and walked more awkwardly. I barely saw his face, and I mainly just saw him from behind, mysteriously, slowly walking down the street, unobservable to passers by. It seemed as though his reality, and the reality I saw, was in “our world” yet moved at a different pace, in different light, and was unobservable.

The vision was eerie but also fascinating. When I go back to Helsinki, I sometimes wish that I could briefly slip into that reality again, and find out what precisely this scary, but fascinating figure, is. Although this is not to say that one should do this, for these spiritual beings may be often unfriendly or hostile, and I do not recommend making any assumptions about us being able to truly understand this topic; we don't.

Finland is also largely not known for its legends of giants. I am aware of no legends of giant skeletons being found in Finland. But there are legends of beings in Finnish mythology that could be described as giant. There are also giants graves, particularly in western parts of Finland, which I presume may also be linked to pre-Norse Bronze Age cultures, and not to Uralic or pre-Uralic cultures. And also there was a large Norse and pre-Norse influence around Helsinki, and in Helsinki, there are many buildings that boast this so-called “Tartarian” architecture, which some believed originally housed giants. Essentially, if giant humans of the nephilim-clown or stallo-type lived in Finland, I think that they are more a pre-Norse rather than pre-Uralic connection. i.e. they seem to connect to the parts of Finland that later became Norse or Swedish-speaking. Note also that some clown hats, those with two “horns” are also naturally similar to the horned giants I have discussed here, although the clown-like being I saw in my vision had a clown’s top hat, and no visible horns.

In the Finnish language book Myytillisiä Tarinoita – ”mythic tales”, there is also a story about a giant, or rather, two giants, as tall as trees. These giants seem pretty hostile, and, at least in terms of how they are depicted in the accompanying piece of artwork, they resemble very closely the “clown giant” I saw in my vision. Strange, strange stuff. In the accompanying artwork they even have top hats. The artwork is on page 45. The short story in question is on pages 44 and 46, I quote below from a part of the short story and translate:

 

“…. siinä on pitkä männikkö – tuli kaksi miestä häntä vastaan, ja ne olivat niin pitkiä ne miehet kuin männyt” over there is a tall pine forest – two men came towards him, and they were so tall those men, as pine trees”.

 

This story originates from Virrat. Virrat is a town located in western Finland, but some fair distance from the Gulf of Bothnia. Virrat is located within the Pirkanmaa region, known in Swedish as Birkaland.

 

Part of what prompted me to discuss these topics was a conversation about casinos, and somebody describing to me what it’s like to be inside a casino – kind of like a different reality. Apparently casinos (at least the ones she’s been to) have no clocks, so in effect there is no time. No daylight, no night, just moving fractals of colour on slot machines and gambling tables. When she mentioned this, it got me thinking about some things I have come across in people having dreams, seeing clown-like figures, in psychedelic-looking realities, which seem oddly, to resemble a casino or circus. And just as casinos seem to mimic a different sense of time and reality, it seems that sometimes people encounter these “giants” in dreams in similar environments. How interesting. I have no desire to go to casinos, but I am low-key fascinated by this person’s impressions and observations about them, and their mystery. This entire topic seemed to come into fruition from an unseen, unspoken vibe, beyond the summer light, all of us tanned and amber, but a mystery from the coming stormy sky, unspoken mysteries welling in the subconscious, of themes that we wish to understand, themes which whisper from beyond the warm amber light – smiles eerie and beautiful, making me feel drawn to whispers in the breeze, and waiting for the storm of the heyoka (heyokas and clowns are also linked to storms!).

 

Please note that I will also soon be making some updates to the page layouts and titles of articles on my separate Clwàideac na Cuinne website at present (not the website you are currently looking at), and have recently added a new article too. Old web links to the pages which I have added before to other publications may not work correctly due to these updates, but the new page names will soon be more concrete. Note also that I have discussed and sometimes just mentioned the stallo in several publications recently including in recently published ebooks published via this site (that you are currently on). Note that this article in front of you is also completely separate from my many publications, including this year, that pertain to pre-Norse and pre-Viking and pre-Germanic cultures, including a new article, which is, unlike the others, not yet published, but which I hope to be published in Silly Linguistics later this month. I also discuss Finnish words for pine in 2 articles so far on my Clwàideac na Cuinne website (in one of the article talking about a connection between it and a Japanese word). This article was updated a few hours after its original publication.

 

May the Great Spirit bless and protect us all, and guide us to truth, love and kindness. Thank you for reading this article on this page.