I have been disappointed to discover that the Cerne Abbas giant - the impressively cocked hill figure that features on my poster, book cover and talking cock website has not always been gifted with such an impressive cock.
I was aware there was some debate about which era he originated from. Most historians see him as an iron age figure, or possibly a representation of Hercules from the first century AD (he has a cloak on his non-club arm that has disappeared over the years), but he isnt mentioned in any records until the mid-eighteenth century, which has led some to suggest he was put there then as a joke to annoy the Puritans of the time.
Personally I think he probably dates from a couple of thousand years ago, but Im not sure that that really matters anyway.
What Ive just found out though is that prior to 1908 his cock was about six feet shorter than it now appears. Because the figure is cut into the chalk hillside, the lines have to be re-scoured every couple of decades or the grass grows back and the image disappears (hence the loss of the cloak mentioned above). Drawings of the Rude Man (as he is sometimes known) from before the twentieth century show him with a smaller (though still supernaturally erect flat against his belly) penis, topped with what is generally taken to be his navel.
So some early twentieth century wag (or incompetent) decided to incorporate the navel into the phallus and one of the earliest and most successful penile extensions has been performed.
It makes me sad, mainly cos I like to think of Iron Age men, delightedly carving this much too big dong, on their terrifying giant, which isnt so far away from the juvenile behaviour of school boys drawing similar impossibly gargantuan and spunking pricks on blackboards, overhead projectors and the condensation of sweaty school class rooms. A proportionately more average schlong is less humorous and thus the link I felt with those randy Ancient Britons is slightly broken.
But maybe the Giant being closer to the norm in the trouser department (not that he seems to care much for trousers) makes him more of an everyman figure (in all but the angle of his dangle). Perhaps in his original incarnation he is a better figurehead (in every sense) for my movement to celebrate the penis.
Or maybe what is taken to be his navel, is in fact a slightly unusual bell-end. A lady in my show describes one penis as being like a golf ball on a stick. Possibly hes still comically large and yet reassuringly unusual.
In any case I dont suppose it matters who made him, or who decided to give him a relatively painless extension. Whatever the truth for the last 350 years at least the citizens of that small Dorset town have ensured the grass never grows too long and re-cut the lines into the hill-side (although he was camouflaged during World War II to stop German pilots using him as a navigational aid should have left him up there, if the Germans had thought that was an average Briton they would have been too afraid to invade us!).
Lets hope hes still up there in 4003 and that by then his cock is up to his chin.
