From Mr Scott’s article on ‘Turf Monuments of England’, in the Proceedings of the Bath and Bristol Branch of the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society 1914.
archive.org/stream/proceedingsofbat1909some#page/n331/mode/2up
Showing the landscape context of the giant dude before recent makeover. If I recall correctly, the building to the right of image is a old peoples’ home. Please send me there when my time comes.
A road sign, just around the corner from the viewpoint car park
The Giant restored 20/09/08
The Cerne Giant Homer 6/10/07. Does it consist of remaining paint or just dead grass? It would be interesting to know.
The Cerne Giant 6/10/07. homer still clearly visible. Does it consist of remaining paint or just dead grass? It would be interesting to know.
As seen on 02/10/2005 CE.
Overview of Giant Hill from the car park by the A352
3 September 2001
A big lad – if you know what I mean. Can’t rival the aerial photo, but not bad
The giant comes to life with this creative costume made using E L wire. I think it might be cruel to make one of the Uffington horse though.
Ah the thrill of fear as a child watching ‘Arthur C Clarke’s Mysterious World’. This episode includes the Cerne Abbas Giant and some other English hill figures.
“The key to the giant’s identity may lie in something missing from the drawing: what did he have in his left hand?”
The locals report it’s supposed to be a head he’s chopped off – or a dog on a string. But an archaeologist gets involved with some geophysics equipment and appears to discover it was a cape, thus suggesting the figure is Hercules. He even gets out a bucket of whitewash and paints on the outline. To be honest the resulting figure looks quite convincingly balanced. But who knows – sometimes you find what you’re looking for, don’t you.
(Most is in part 2 but it’s worth seeing the end of part one not least for the strange local inhabitant).
Until now archaeologists and historians had thought that a 55-metre tall figure, cut into a hillside in Dorset, the so-called Cerne Abbas Giant, was prehistoric or Roman – or that, alternatively, it had been created in the 17th century,
independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/cerne-abbas-giant-anglo-saxon-b1845636.html
Snails have shown an ancient naked figure sculpted into a chalk hillside is unlikely to be prehistoric as hoped, archaeologists have said.
Tests of soil samples extracted from Dorset’s Cerne Abbas Giant to determine its exact age have been delayed by the coronavirus epidemic.
They are not due until later in the year.
However, land snail shells found in the samples suggest it may date to medieval times, separate tests have found.
I know it’s a few days old now, but:
“A previously unseen oil painting of the Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset is now on display at Wiltshire Heritage Museum.
The painting, by Devizes artist David Inshaw, is one of a number of additions to the White Horses and Hill Figures exhibition at the museum in Devizes.
Also on display are a triptych from wildlife artist Joanna May which shows white horses alongside her trademark British brown hares.
Alongside these new artworks are historical programmes and souvenirs showing celebrations held at the Westbury White Horse for coronations and jubilees.
The exhibition focuses primarily on the chalk figures of Wiltshire but also includes figures from all over Britain.
The exhibition will run until February 27.”
gazetteandherald.co.uk/news/8688915.Giant_goes_on_display_at_Wiltshire_Heritage_Museum/
Just a bit of fun:
guardian.co.uk/travel/2010/jul/27/cerne-abbas-giant-dorset-fertility
My mum did find out she was pregnant with me a few days after visiting the Giant, but that’s another story!
Well this news should brighten the day up, its from the Daily Mail
My arms feel as if they have done ten rounds with a Sumo wrestler, I have a nasty gash on my left thumb, my back is in spasm and I can barely stand, having tripped myself up and rolled like a human doughnut down a precipitous slope. But this is what happens when you take on a giant, especially when it is Britain’s last and most celebrated one. I refer, of course, to the Cerne Abbas giant in verdant Dorset. The club-wielding figure, which is 180ft from head to toe and is administered by the National Trust, is carved into the hillside. It is finally due a makeover.
Thirty volunteers are restoring the giant – infamous for its gargantuan genitalia – to its old glory, re-digging its silhouette, which has been blurred by overgrown weeds and the footprints of animals, and re-chalking its outline.
No one is quite sure when the giant first appeared. Some say he is a pagan fertility symbol and that if a childless woman and her partner spend the night camping between the giant’s legs, she will be a mother within two years. Others claim that the figure represents the Greek hero Hercules, who was often depicted with a club in his right hand. Either way, there are no documents mentioning the giant before 1694 – although medieval writers had written copious amounts about the hillside itself.
Local records suggest that the giant was carved as late as the 17th century, during the Civil War, on the orders of the area’s bigwig, Denzil Holles. It was intended as a cruel parody of Oliver Cromwell, who was sometimes referred to mockingly as England’s Hercules.
Whatever the truth, when I arrive at the picturesque village of Cerne Abbas, it is clear that nearly every emporium refers to its most famous son. There is the Giant Inn, the Giant Pub, the Giant Bakery and even Giant Hairstyles. Nonetheless, locals are furious at what they call the ‘crass commercialism’ of their giant. He has been used for publicity stunts and as an advertisement for everything from condoms and jeans to bicycles.
To publicise the opening of The Simpsons Movie in July last year, a 160ft Homer Simpson was outlined in white paint to the left of the hill’s more established occupant. Enraged local neo-pagans enacted a rain dance in the hope of washing the American imposter away. The following month, a member of Fathers 4 Justice painted the giant’s sexual organ bright purple.
Drinkers in the Giant Inn mutter darkly about the giant’s revenge. ‘You have got to treat him with respect,’ says John Hodge, a local farmer. His companions nod sternly. I am then told the giant is not merely fiction, but actually existed in the flesh. According to 80-year-old Hodge, he wreaked havoc by killing sheep and cattle in the Middle Ages. But then he fell asleep on the hillside and the villagers roped him down and killed him before digging a trench, which is still visible, around his corpse.
National Trust archaeologist Nancy Grace, who has long brown plaits and looks rather like a medieval damsel-not-in-distress, is enthralled by the ancient stories. ‘No one really knows when he first appeared,’ she says. ‘But it is true that written evidence points to the 17th century when he was created as a rude cartoon of Oliver Cromwell. He must have taken ages to carve.‘
‘But would anyone really go to all that trouble just to make fun of a politician?’ I ask her. (You cannot imagine a chalk figure of our own dear Prime Minister gracing one of England’s green and pleasant hillsides, let alone one with an erection.) ‘Feelings ran much higher in those days,’ says Nancy. ‘After all, they were cutting off peoples’ heads back then.‘
We are standing at the bottom of the hill, admiring the view. I watch the workers on the hill. They look like ants. And then I join them. I am given a series of complicated directions and begin my upward and nigh-on-impossible muddy trudge. I fall down every second step. Something brown splatters in my face. I glance over at the National Trust workers and hope they haven’t noticed me. ‘Hello over there!’ shouts one of them. ‘Are you having difficulties?’ I pretend he is speaking to someone else.
Eventually, I find myself on top of the giant’s club. There, Mike Clarke, director of the National Trust, explains the makeover. Once the old chalk and detritus has been removed, 17 tons of sparkling new white chalk will be poured into the outline and then flattened. He hopes everything will be done by Sunday. To his left a woman heaves a bag of chalk onto her shoulders, panting with exhaustion. ‘It’s quite a job given his size and the fact his genitalia alone is 10ft long,’ he says.
He explains that over time, pranksters have deliberately extended his manhood’s length. The prudish Victorians, meanwhile, attempted to cover it up by planting a strategically placed bellybutton. ‘But do people really come to romance each other in the mud?’ I ask. And after that debilitating scramble up the hill? ‘Oh yes. We get a lot of calls saying people are at it in the grass.‘
Mike hands me a large sack and instructs me to dig out the old chalk, which is a rheumy grey. I shovel as much of it as I can into the sack. I look around, hopefully, for some National Trust worker to take it away to a waiting lorry.
‘What are you hanging about for?’ remarks a small, slight woman standing nearby. ‘I don’t think I can lift this,’ I confess. She laughs derisively and explains that I have to do my own hauling. My temper up, I shoulder the sack, thinking I must look less like Hercules than the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I trip on a small mound and fall over. There is now more chalk on me than on the giant. Mike sighs. ‘Try putting in the new chalk instead,’ he says.
He gives me a bag of fresh chalk and a long pipe with a flat rectangle on the bottom. I am told to lay the powder along the outline and then use this object to pack the new chalk as tightly as I can. I reach for a handful and lightly sprinkle it on the ground. ‘What are you doing?’ says Mike. ‘You’re not icing a cake. Put your back into it.’ I lift the flattener and start bashing the chalk. Mike grins at my discomfort. ‘It’s much better than going to the gym,’ he says. ‘I’ve become so fit. My partner is thrilled.’ Interesting. Will he be bringing her up there for a fertility rite? ‘Gracious, no. I’m a National Trust official,’ he says. I don’t trust him. The Cerne Abbas giant seems to have a strange effect on those who come too close to it.
Is it the revenge of the giant slain in the ancient mists of time? Is it the allure of the arcane rites recommended by erotically minded pagans who worship fertility symbols? Or could it be Oliver Cromwell having the last laugh on monarchist modern Britain.
I start back down the hill, buoyed up by the thought that the descent will be considerably easier than the going up. I am mistaken. I slide down the hill like a human toboggan. Helplessly, I clutch the fence for support and impale my thumb on some barbed wire. The giant’s round, green eyes seem to take on a malevolent glare in the autumn sunshine. This is no Roald Dahl-style BFG. But when I finally look up and see the giant and his shining new outline, it is a wonderful and mesmerising sight. If magic exists anywhere, it may, indeed, be in this quiet corner of Dorset.
By Petronella Wyatt
From today’s Telegraph -
“This year the giant has gone from being a white icon, through a green man stage, into the invisible man.
“We need more sheep on the site or it needs the village to take him into their care by trimming the grass, weeding the trenches then whitewashing them.”
telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/06/19/eagiant119.xml
thisisdorset.net/display.var.1645001.0.giant_daubed_by_vigilante.php
RESIDENTS living close to the Cerne Abbas Giant are angry with campaigners after the famous landmark was vandalised.
A man from the Fathers 4 Justice group, which campaigns against family law favouring mothers, is thought to be behind the 40ft penis on the National Trust site being painted purple. The landmark was targeted overnight between Friday and Saturday by someone describing himself as the Westcountry’s ‘Purple Phantom’.
Cerne Abbas Parish Council chairman Peter Smith said: “This is particularly irritating because it has happened inside the enclosure that protects the giant.
The land there is sacrosanct because it is a special site. We don’t want people damaging it for obvious reasons.”
Purple is the international colour for equality.
Written beside the giant were the words Read Family Court Hell’ – a reference to a recently published book by Fathers 4 Justice campaigner Mark Harris.
The action follows a rash of purple doors being painted on to the offices of Cafcass, the court welfare service, in the Westcountry in recent weeks.
And it is not the first time the Cerne Abbas Giant has been targeted in the name of publicity. In July cartoon character Homer Simpson was painted next to the giant to promote the new Simpsons film. Mr Smith said residents had not objected to that because it had not damaged the 180ft carving – believed to aid fertility – and had brought more people to the area to visit.
A Fathers 4 Justice spokesman said: “We have no idea who this man is, but clearly he is a sympathiser to our cause, has read a book that has made him very angry. He sounds like a vigilante.”
Pagans have pledged to perform “rain magic” to wash away a cartoon character painted next to their famous fertility symbol – the Cerne Abbas giant.
BBC News
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/dorset/6901543.stm
I can hear those rants beginning...
This walk may be more interesting to geologists but looks interesting....
The walk starts at the spring which rises from below the Upper Greensand. A huge quarry on the eastern side of Giant Hill, in the Lower and Middle Chalk, provided building stone for Cerne and probably other villages. The walk goes over the top of the hill, which is covered in a thick deposit of Clay with Flints. The valleys at Minterne Parva and Upcerne are also on the Greensand.
The main building stones in Cerne Abbas are the Lower and Middle Chalk and Lower Purbeck limestone from the Ridgeway quarries. The Lower Chalk may be identified by its gritty texture, with the occasional dark grain of glauconite. The Middle Chalk has been used in huge blocks in the medieval North Barn (now Beauvoir Court). The Lower Purbeck, a white laminated limestone, has been used in several buildings in the main street, and for the Hospice.
Cost £1.50 per person
I called into the car park to view the Giant last Autumn but due to the wet summer the chalk lines were not very clear as grass was starting to grow through. There was a sign on the gate in the car park stating that there was a re-chalking process due to start shortly so presumably all will be clear when visiting now? There is a gate from the car park which gives access to a path which leads to the Giant if you want a closer err.. inspection! I will visit again when in the area as Cerne Abbas village also looked very pretty.
Access hmmm, didn’t actually go up to ‘the man’, but I guess this might still be useful to someone.... Tarmac car park is signposted from the A352, on the left heading south. This is the best observation point for seeing the Giant on his hillside, which is of course the only way to really see the figure properly (other than from an aircraft!).
Thursday 18 September 2003
I’d been looking forward to seeing ye-probably-not-quite-so-old-as-perhaps-was-thought-but-who-cares Giant for quite a while. Pretty damn impressive the old boy and his Belisha beacon are too!
Although I still find the evidence not completely conclusive, I’m quite happy with the notion that it’s a later figure on a long-significant hillside. And even if the theory that it’s supposed to represent Ollie Cromwell is right, it’s still a cool sight/site.
Although not quite steep enough for perfect observation from below, Giant Hill gives a pretty good view from the car park. We didn’t bother climbing the hill, as we were on a pretty tight schedule and wanted to see quite a few sites on our only day in the ‘far’ south.
When we reached Yelcombe Bottom, the valley below the Giant, it was already early evening, and a warm golden glow was spreading across the land before us.
The gradient and angle of the carving means that it can only be seen properly from the air – not dissimilar to the Uffington White Horse. The car park opposite the Giant is a tranquil, peaceful spot, apart from the occasional car passing by. A thoroughly good vibe permeated the whole sunny valley, as evening songs of blackbirds, robins, chaffinches and wrens filled the air. It’s very easy to feel that the Giant owns Yelcombe Bottom, and there is a definite feel of mystery about the place. Worth a look.
Visited November 1998: We went to see the giant on our honeymoon. At the time Lou was already pregnant (no, it’s wasn’t a shotgun wedding) so we decided fertility rites needn’t be pursued.
When my Dad drove past this site with his prudish mother and father my Grandma allegedly commented on the size of the giant’s club. This wasn’t intended as an innuendo (if you’d ever met her you’d know she was no Kenneth Williams), but as a pathetic distraction technique, intended to draw her son’s attention away from the enormous penis on the hillside. Needless to say this didn’t stop Dad from spotting the giant’s most distinctive attribute.
There was an interesting article in 3rd stone by Jeremy Harte that presents
convincing evidence that the figure is not ancient which i think is the only
conclusion you can come to by looking at the facts even if that is not what you
want to believe. here is a quote from the article:
“no 17thcentury deeds or field names referred to the figure, despite his obvious
advantages as a landmark. Even Giant Hill appears as Trendle Hill, after an
earthwork at its summit, until 1700. Neither the churchwardens nor the estate
managers, as we have seen, record the work of recutting the Giant before 1694. He
is absent, not only from national surveys by antiquaries
like Camden, but from the notes of local scholars such as Gerard who had passed
through Cerne in 1625, and from a very detailed survey of the manor in 1617.”
This is in dramatic contrast to the genuinely ancient hillfigure at uffington
where the first record is of a white horse hill in the 1070’s and of the actual
figure in 1190.
you can read the article here:
thirdstone.demon.co.uk/download/cerne_24.pdf
Just to mention that Ronald Hutton has made an academic career out of ‘debunking’ ancient myths. Not that his books aren’t interesting in their way, but if you follow his ideas there aren’t *any* ancient sites or traditions that predate pretty much the Victorians! A large pinch of salt is advisable; and our speculations are at least as likely as his, most of the time, when all’s said and done!
I simply love this giant, no matter the embaresment is causes to some. And shall I tll you something, the dick’s a fake! Oh yes, it is genuinely there, but the lenght was added to in later times, by ‘innocently’ enlarging it to incorporate the navel as well! So all theories of fertility or the abbott being ridiculed can go out of the window...
What can you say really.. gut reaction when I saw him was to laugh my ass off. Im sure he has had this effect on pilgrims for thousands of years.
I read with interest what Proffesor Ronald Hutton had to say about him being a Reformation joke aimed at Cromwell. The argument is based around the fact that no one wrote about him until that period.
The theory being that a local landowner went out and cut the figure into the cliff to flick the V’s at Olly.
The trouble is no one at the time, including the aforementioned landowner wrote about the appearance of a vast nob monster on a Dorset hillside. No one involved in the joke seems to have felt the need to mention it or draw anyones attention to it. A lot of effort to go to to raise a laugh and then not share it with anyone.
The argument seems to be “no one mentioned it, so it didn’t exist”. By the same measure Britain didn’t exist until the Romans started writing about it. End of rant.
I have a couple of stories about the big mans pride and joy. He has lost it on a few occasions. The prudish Victorians turfed it over and then during the Second World War he was emasculated again. The story goes that Luftwaffe pilots were using his nob to target Bristol.
My favourite story is about the Sunday school teacher who led a party of children up onto the giant for a day out. When an inquisitive child asked about the monster dick the flustered teacher told the kids. ” He must have been a tailor, and those must be his scissors”.
The village of Cerne Abbas has a cracking holly well near the church.
this is one steep hill! -- we went rolling decorated eggs down here on Easter Sunday. Too many ridges and paths to get a satisfyingly smooth roll though ...
but the sheer angle of the hill sways me away from the “can only see it from the air, so it must be for gods/aliens” type theory ... it’s the steepest non-cliff hill I think I’ve been on – perhaps its the nearest the designers were going to get to a suitable canvass for viewing the giant from the road/nearby hills.
Dunno really – just a thought – only by going up there, rather than just looking at it from the road as I’ve done before, did I think about it
What’s that huge scary looking mansion type place opposite all about then?
There were curative wells at Cerne; one called Pill Well, now dry, and St. Austin’s Well, anciently Silver Well. Hel Well still flowing, in a marshy place covered with trees and brushwood, was not curative. A man now living, named Vincent, aged fifty-five years, had a crippled child. Every morning, for several months together, Vincent carried his child, wrapped in a blanket, to St. Austin’s Well, and dipped it into the well, and at last it was cured. Sore eyes are healed by bathing them, and feeble health is restored by drinking. A farmer used to go down to this well every morning and drink a tumblerful of the water. (Jonathan Hardy, aged 65, born at Cerne, and now sexton there.) I have not analysed the water, but can affirm that it is not chalybeate. The spring sometimes “breaks,” that is, suddenly begins to flow with increased energy. Its water never freezes.
[...]
If anyone looks into St. Austin’s Well the first thing on Easter morning he will see the faces of those who will die within the year. (--Miss Gundry.)
St Austin’s Well also seems to be called St Augustine’s well. But it’s interesting that it gets a non-religious name too? The well is just south of the Abbey, which is to the south of the Giant and Trendle hill.
From ‘Dorset Folklore Collected in 1897’ by H. Colley March, in Folklore v10, Dec 1899.
While speaking of English stories, I may relate one told to myself and my friend, Mr. J. J. Foster, at Cearne in Dorsetshire. We were questioning a labourer as to the giant figure cut in the turf at that place. He assured us that it was supposed to be the representation of a Danish giant who led an invasion of this coast, and lay on the side of the hill to sleep; while asleep the peasantry tied him down to the ground and cut off his head, and the outline in the turf represents the place where the giant lay. Upon being asked how long ago this was supposed to be, the answer was, “About a hundred years.”
From ‘The Gentleman’s Magazine Library: English Traditional Lore’ 1868.
After an excursion, causing mischief in the Vale of Blackmore, devouring several sheep, the Giant lay down on the hill to rest and digest his breakfast. On falling asleep the local people rivetted him down, killed him and then cut his figure in solid chalk.
Variations of this story can be found in:
Hutchins 1774 29292
Darlton 1935 p 80
Wightman 1977 p98
Five or six years ago I was told by an elderly dame at Cerne Abbas (Dorset) that her mother had told her, in her young days, that it was customary, in her own youth, to ” hold junkettings ” on the Giant: and that it was well known that if a girl slept on the Giant, she would have a large family.
The ” junkettings ” were almost certainly the well-known May-pole festivities held in the Trundle, on the top of the hill, above the Giant. The latter part of the elderly dame’s statement is not, I think, so well known. But it points to folk-memory of the fertility cult, with which the Giant seems so obviously to be connected.
K. T.
From Notes and Queries, September 13th 1930.
J & C Bord report some relatively unsurprising folklore for the figure, though they don’t give any dates – well, perhaps it’s still going on:
In order to cure barrenness, women would sit on the hillside (they don’t mention where, but I think some spots would be more effective than others). Likewise, married couples would spend the night there to ensure they had children. Unmarried girls (being much more polite) would pray at the giant’s feet that they wouldn’t end up old maids.
(’Atlas of Magical Britain’)
A vicar of the nineteenth century put a stop to the scourings of the figure, which were held every seven years, ‘as’ says Udal in his Dorsetshire Folklore (1922), ‘they tended to practical illustrations of the above superstitions.‘
Disgraceful. (Quoted in Jennifer Westwood’s ‘Albion’).
There is a book of poems written by Jeremy Hooker, “The Soliloquies of a Chalk Giant”, in which our giant appears, rather sadly at times. The last verse on one of the poems is below...... As he is a disputed giant on TMA, legends will abound of course.
“The god is a graffito carved on the belly of the chalk,
his savage gesture subdued by the stuff of his creation.
He is taken up like a gaunt white doll by the round hills,
wrapped around by the long pale hair of the fields.”
But Jeremy Hooker went on to speculate about the naming of this giant, and to quote him, I have found something I wrote ages ago, his book was borrowed from the library some years back..
If as Hooker says, he comes from this time than he must be Helith – “In which district the god Helith was once worshipped” This comes form an old document, and is part of his legend. Helith, an iron age god who takes his name from Hercules. Romano-Britains would have adopted and changed the old roman god to fit their own religion.
Augustine’s mission in 601 AD seemed to have renamed him as Cerno El, the pagan saxons renaming him as Heil. But apparently during the saxon period he shared his valley with another god whose neophytes purified the waters that had long been sacred.
But to conclude, here is Hooker’s meaning for the words Helith....
“Helith; that is holy stone – or a corruption of Helios, maybe the sun. A sunstone, pediment in earth. The ground is dense with holy names; Elwood, Elston hill, Elwell, Yelcombe (y l cwm). Was there a standing stone on Elston Hill before Helith was fleshed out below the Trendle: Where beth they, beforen us weren? Make your enquiry of the dust, I make no enquiry there. Give me a living name”
I was reading about the Turner Prize – winning artist Grayson Perry. He’s well known for wearing dresses as his alter-ego, Claire, but he’s also got an outfit which I thought TMA readers would like.
telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/02/17/smworld117.xml
In the Guardian a couple of years ago he said:
This set of motorbike leathers was the first garment I ever had made, in 1989. I made the patches myself and took them in to the maker. He held up the willy patch between finger and thumb like it was a piece of off fish.
The figure also seems to figure in his work – ‘Vote Alan Measles for God’ for example!
Whilst there is dispute about the age of the big bloke, a very cogent argument for an early age is given in the only book I know of which is entirely devoted to the subject – The Cerne Giant by Rodney Castleden.
Although he’s a big lad, he hasn’t always been quite so well endowed, there is an early edwardian photographic postcard which clearly shows him having a navel. This was incorporated into his penis when the giant was re-cut in 1908.
Well, according to this link, sacredsites.com/europe/england/cerne_giant.html.
If you take a sightline/alignment on May Day you should see the sun coming up;
to quote; “a sightline taken up the giant’s penis on May Day points directly at the sun as it rises over the crest of the hill”
So to verify this fact if anyone is around at dawn on May Day next year – please check..
In 1980 Devonshire artist Kenneth Evans-Loude proposed cutting a Marilyn Monroe figure on the hill with the giant ( to satisfy his lust ) He got permission off the landowner, but the Arts Council wouldn’t give him the sponsorship.
dude
having it large on the hill
looks spaced out to me
looks on
did they let you
grass over for fear
of rebellion?
white chalk man
shine on!
There is a well immediately south of the figure, at the top of the graveyard. JM Harte’s article summarises the wide range of folklore connected with it. (yeah it’s not to do with the giant, but it’s very near, and fertility features again).
The page is part of Katy Jordan’s ‘Tales from the Black Cat’ set of websites, which are well worth a look.
Nice aerial picture, and a little bit of info.
