The practice of human sacrifice within a wicker figure was first described by Julius Caesar in his Commentary on the Gallic War, although the veracity of his observations has been questioned. The image is a potent one, and has endured until this day and was immortalised in Robin Hardy’s film from 1973 which featured Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee and Brit Ekland. You can watch a full documentary about the film and the cult surrounding it below. The illustration used here is from Aylett Sammes’s Britannia Antiqua Illustrata (1676).
