Wicker Man, Druid Ceremony, Illustration

Wicker Man, Druid Ceremony, Illustration

The Wicker Man was a Druidic effigy built out wood and straw, then covered with grass to form a giant man. Druids would pack the hollow statues with humans and animals and set them alight in sacrifice to the Celtic gods Taranis, Esus and Teutates. The Wicker Man ceremony was a harvest sacrifice meant to appease the gods of the earth and trees. The rite of burning straw men, without the sacrificial victims, persisted well into the 19th century in spring and midsummer festivals throughout Europe, which often swapped the ceremony's pagan tropes for Christian ones. Colorized version of an engraving from A Tour in Wales, written by Thomas Pennant, 1781.

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