Nothing Sacred?

On Monday 20th November 2006, members of the 'Wicker Man' discussion group received a post from Steve P who has run the excellent 'Various Versions Of The Wicker Man' website for some years. He mentioned that he had been emailed by someone who had just visited the 'TWM' shooting location at Burrowhead where the film's famous closing scenes were shot. Steve's source advised him that upon his visit to the site on Saturday 18th November, it appeared that the famous surviving legs of 'The Wicker Man' had gone.

For those who don't know; at least two wicker men were built during the film's production. The main 'hero' man's legs have long since gone and were reported to have been destroyed in a fire during the early 1990's. However, there was another set of legs which supported a smaller effigy which is believed to have been used for close-up shots and the iconic head-toppling shot.

Although it might be reasonable to suggest that the items in question were merely two old lumps of wood, it should be stated that many fans had travelled great distances to see them and they were certainly high on the list of things to see if doing a 'TWM' locations tour. To say that their disappearance has left a nasty taste in the mouth of fans of 'The Wicker Man' is something of an understatement, especially as the stumps had become something of a local landmark and a reasonable tourist attraction.

Myself, Declan McCafferty, and website cohort Andrew Sandford, went down to the location to check it out for ourselves during the following Thursday in the unlikeliest of hopes that perhaps it was some sort of practical joke. Sadly, this was not to be the case.

Upon our approach to the legs, it was apparent that there were car tyre marks down the slope towards the stumps as can be seen in this picture. The tyre marks terminated at the stumps themselves.

The clean cuts on the remains seemed very fresh and had clearly been done with some sort of power saw. There was lots of Wicker Man debris around the area which had been blown about by high winds not uncommon for a Scottish cliff edge during November. What was particularly galling was that much of this debris consisted of bigger pieces than TWM fans had traditionally shaved off as a memento over the years. This has done nothing other than to highlight the careless greed of the thieves.

We spoke to the owners of the Burrowhead Holiday Village - who own the land where the legs stood - and were assured that the deed was not carried out by themselves and that they had no knowledge as to exactly who carried it out. Similarly, local artist Amanda Sunderland was saddened by the disappearance. Amanda has based some of her artwork around the legs and is well aware of them as a local landmark.

Thursday's edition of the Daily Mail carried a well informed article on the subject featuring quotes from several TWM fans. The piece also quoted Christopher Lee as saying "its distasteful and unnecessary and typical of the times in which we live". They also mentioned that the owner of Burrowhead Holiday Village had reported the theft to the police.

It has been suggested by members of the online TWM discussion group that perhaps these artefacts will show up on ebay at some point. Our own thoughts are that this is unlikely. Personally, I keep on imagining the culprit to be slightly similar to ( yet many social rungs below ) the kleptomaniac who stole Edvard Munch's famous 'The Scream' painting a couple of years ago. But, as Christopher Lee himself would say on the subject of the film's famous disappearing negative "I am indulging in mere opinion, I have no proof.." etc, etc.

Despite this unpleasantness, we would still recommend anyone interested arrange a TWM locations tour if they haven't already done so. There are still a great many places to visit - please see our locations section for details. We would also recommend that interested parties do so sooner, rather than later, in case the same mean spirited 'collectors' strike again.

Assuming the person or persons responsible are even computer literate, it is reasonably safe to guess that - as a TWM fan - they read this site on occasion. If this is the case than the wicker-man.com team of Andrew, Anthony and myself sincerely hope that they don't extract too much joy as they frote their new and practically useless souvenirs which would serve a much better purpose in their correct location.