The Giant is situated on a hillside overlooking the ancient village of Cerne Abbas. The massive figure is outlined by a two foot wide trench cut into the rock and filled with chalk. The Giant measures 180 feet from head to foot, is 45 feet wide across his shoulders, and each eye is three feet in diameter. In his right hand he wields a knobbly club which is 120 feet long. It's thought that he was once accompanied by a dog, but only the faintest suggestion of this remains. His most prominent feature is the thirty-foot erect phallus, which has given him the nickname of the "Rude" Man of Cerne. Naturally, this erotic feature suggests that he was carved as a fertility symbol, and at one time the village maypole was positioned in a rectangular enclosure not far from the figure's left hand, known locally as the Trendle or Frying Pan. A 16th century writer, Philip Stubbs, claimed that he had been told of over one hundred young maids who went up to the Trendle and the surrounding woods to celebrate May Day, but less than one third "returned home as they went", suggesting that a good time was had by just about everyone!
The Giant has many stories attached to him. One legend says that the people of Cerne killed a real giant as he lay on the hillside sleeping off a heavy meal of sheep, and then drew the outline of the Giant around the body. In another tale, he is the devourer of maidens; while a third legend says that any girl who sleeps on the Giant will be the mother of many children. Certainly the fertility association is strong, and childless couples still visit the Giant.
The earliest written reference to the Cerne Giant is 1751, when the Reverend John Hutchings mentioned it in his Guide to Dorset. He wrote to Dr Lyttleton, the Bishop of Exeter, that there was a figure on the hillside of vast dimensions which, he had been told by locals, had been carved in 1539. In that year, the monastery had been dissolved, and the figure was supposed to be the wicked abbot, Thomas Corton, with the phallus representing his lustful ways, the club showing his reputation for taking vicious revenge, and his feet pointing away from the village to show that he had been driven out. However, the Giant was not mentioned in a Dorset guide written in 1617, which is strange if he was in existence at that time, and nor was he mentioned in an earlier survey dated 1356.
The monastery, established in Cerne Abbas in the 6th century, is in itself another argument against the Cerne Giant's great antiquity; a pagan figure such as the Rude Man would hardly have been allowed to remain in such close proximity.
If the Cerne Giant is of any great age, then he probably represents an ancient god; one suggestion is he could be the Celtic god Nodens, who was worshipped by the Durotrige tribe who lived in Dorset before the arrival of the Romans in AD 43. The support for this idea comes from a bronze handle, found when land on a Celtic fort site near Blandford Forum was ploughed up. Archaeologists decided that the handle was Celtic, and that the figure of a naked man depicted on it was Nodens; the Giant on the hill at Cerne Abbas shows a marked relationship in the style of drawing.
Another contender is the Roman god Hercules. In 1764 William Stukely wrote that people in the area called the Giant "Helis". Another writer stated that up until the 6th century, the god Helis was worshipped. Helith and Helis may be bastardisations of the ancient version of the name for Hercules - Hetethkin. The Giant can also be compared with representations of Hercules found in other parts of the country, indicating that the figure dates from the 2nd century at the latest.
As well as holding a club in his right hand, the Giant also once held another object dangling from his left hand; supporters of the Nodens theory think it could have been a hare, similar to the one carried by the figure on the bronze handle, and signifying that this was a god of the hunt. However, the object could also be a lion skin, once the symbol of Hercules.
The Giant can be viewed from the A352 Dorchester to Sherborne road, just to the north of Cerne Abbas.
