Apollo Magazine is featuring an interesting & amusing article on this famous chalk giant . https://www.apollo-magazine.com/cer...m=The Cerne Abbas monks and a very crude dude
I wonder if this was made as a deliberate affront or act a resistance to those monks trying to spread Christianity at the time. Wasn't there a church on the adjoining hill facing this? To me, the giant's erection suggests a repudiation of the conflation of sexual desire with sin and damnation that was so much a part of Christianity at the time.
Don't forget there were still many non-Christian cults in England at that time. The Romans had no problem creating statues of Priapus with an erect penis .
Many bands of practicing Druids resisted Roman & Christian indoctrination well into medieval & modern times. They were often used as sorcerers, seers & clairvoyants. They were perceived as a satanic cult by Christians & practiced their rituals "underground" in Britain, Ireland, & Wales. In the 18th century there was renewed interest in the Druids, giving birth to "Neo Druidism" which is still popular today.
I remain highly skeptical. Do you have some scholarly authority you can cite? The persistence of pagan religion (including Druidism) into modern times is, as I understand it, a myth for which no evidence exists. The neo-Druidism invented more recently (as you note) does not. I believe, have any direct connection with the "old religion."
