Il6 THE GIANT AND THE MAYPOLE OF CERNE. 



(44), or Eagle's Hill in Somerset ; and that Cerneli is Cern-lea, 

 like Caeafle for Cheveley. Cern-lea lay, perhaps, a little lower 

 than Cerne Hill, since the description of its possessions includes 

 silva, which is absent from that of the latter place. 



The old name for the knoll where the Giant stands was 

 Trendle Hill. Not far from Lulworth is Trendle Coombe. The 

 A.S. word trendl means a sphere, disc, circle. Now the combe 

 is remarkably circular, and the hill, as viewed from the S.W., 

 looks curiously spherical. On Cat Hill once stood St. 

 Catherine's Chapel. Those place-names in the vicinity of 

 Cerne into which el enters are easily explained. " Ellen " is the 

 elder-tree, and " hel," as in Hellwell, indicates that it was a 

 covered spring. 



Cerno Deum and the Hebrew EL have no validity. 



APPENDIX. 



The Minute Book of the Society of Antiquaries, Volume IX., 

 page 233 (March i$th< 1764). 



Dr. Stukeley read, and delivered in, a minute of the observa- 

 tions made by him on the Giant of Cerne Abbas, in Dorsetshire, 

 read to the Society the i6th of February last. He observes it is 

 an immense figure of an Hercules, armed with his club, cut out 

 of the turf of a sloping chalk-hill. It required a good share of 

 skill in opticks to make it appear with any tolerable degree of 

 symmetry in that situation. 



As the inhabitants thereabouts pretend to know nothing more 

 of it than a traditionary account among them of its being a 

 deity of the ancient Britons, Dr. Stukeley offers the following 

 conjectures thereon. He deems it to be unquestionably meant 

 to represent the primitive Hercules, the Phoenician Chieftan and 

 leader of the first colony to Britain, when they came hither for 

 the Cornish tin. 



(44) Domesday Book. 



