Wicker Man was a Druidic effigy built out wood and straw, then covered with grass to form a giant man. Legend states that the Druids packed 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 held once every five years. The effigies represented the fertility of land and were meant to appease the gods of the earth and trees. The rite of burning straw men, sans 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. In Germany, for instance, the effigies were known as Judas Men and burned at Easter. Woodcut, based on the engraving in Aylett Sammes, Britannia Antiqua Illustrata, 1676.