The Cerne Abbas Giant
This is the fantastic Cerne Abbas Giant, a 55 metre (180 foot) high chalk figure carved into a hillside near the village of Cerne Abbas, England. In his right hand the giant holds a 36.5 metre long club, and of course it’s impossible to miss that the Cerne Abbas Giant is, uh.. giant in every way.
Like many chalk figures carved into the English countryside, the Cerne Abbas giant is often thought of as an ancient creation - however, its history can’t actually be traced back further than the late 17th century - making it (a relatively sprightly) 400 years old.
As for the Giant’s purpose, Wikipedia says:
for hundreds of years it was local custom to erect a maypole within the earthwork about which childless couples would dance to promote fertility and even today childless couples are known to visit the site in order to copulate in the hope that they might have a child.
Now that would have been an interesting find!
Thanks to PapaPenguin, Fred Bobardo, and Anthony Houghton.
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I guess we will have to wait for Google to get access to an infrared satellite feed so we can have a night layer!
I can see a heard of cows in a field near by but the resolution isn’t good enough to make out much detail.
I remember seeing a TV program about this and I seem to recall that the “trick” for a childless couple was for the woman to sit at the tip of the giants … er …. giant-hood, for a period of time…
God: “Hmm, it’s been a while since I’ve made a geyser spring up anywhere…”
My favourite (probably as I grew up close to it is the Long Man of Wilmington Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
A great resource for similar, including what seems like a very comprehensive .kmz file is the hill figure homepage.
I’m a great fan of the hill figures, my favorites are the various White Horses around the Wiltshire area. The latest update made several more sites visible, like the Uffington Horse (probably the oldest of them all)
Also probably only of local interest, the cross at Lenham, Kent.
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
But if you were at Swadelands school you’ll surely remember cross country running up to the cross in all weathers. Lovely.
Saw a program a while back which claimed that this figure represents Oliver Cromwell as Hercules …
OK — we have the advert on the truck from a previous post, and now this bloke on a hill — anyone else think James and Alex need to get outside for some fresh air?
Homer looking damn fertile…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/6901543.stm
Better picture of Homer
http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00342/Gods_of_war_342090a.jpg
source: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article246377.ece