And it was after the recent rewatch that I saw @Taskerland 's blog post about it at https://tasker.land/2026/08/27/tr-the-wicker-man-1974/ . I agree that "Summerisle is a complete fraud leading the villagers along" is a viable interpretation but I think it's also plausible that Summerisle is a legitimate believer in spite of his grandfather's fakery.