Gourmandising Giant

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 23, 28 January 1939, Page 3 (Supplement)

Gourmandising Giant

OVER the door of die last house in the long street of the village of Cerne Abbas; Dorsetshire, are the words "Giant's l Castle." A Press representative 3 called and asked for the giant, i An elderly crippled man sat in a bath i chair at a bench in the middle of'the l room. "The giant," he said, "lies on the hills overlooking the village, and .. he's been dead thousands of years." i The man, Mr. J. A. Thwaites, is the L. only giant-maker in the world. y Though one of his arms is crippled, a and he has to sit in his chair until f bed time, he works at his bench all ° day. His models have gone all over the world. They are little wooden 1, replicas of the Cerne Giant, whose if great form, sprawled across tile hills te exactly as it was cut thousands of le years ago, is one of the oldest relics in the Western world. The giant's , n figure is carved in the hillside. It is ie 180 ft tall.' Its trenches are cleaned by the villagers. Some authorities think u _ that the giant was of Phoenician origin. lg One theory is that the figure repregt sents the great god Baal. A local legend tells of a great giant who once [ r roamed through the valley. He raided the flocks which the villagers kept on en the hills, and could swallow a sheep whole. One day he fed too well, and •; while he slept the villagers 6lew M®They wanted to show their wives iff**' [ts brave they had been, and they • s ~ a record of their feat for their ne'/f" bours to see. So +hey dug* l "®""? giant's body, and when iwtf>n- ished they had his is His fingers were JSttft ; a great club he earned ,