Whole Lotta Long: identity of the Stick Man on Led Zeppelin IV cover revealed

Led Zeppelin's fourth album is untitled. It's known as IV or Four Symbols, or Runes, or Zoso (one of the 'runes' looks like those four letters, stylized).  Back at the time of release, Atlantic sent out type blocks with the symbols on them so the album could be listed and correctly typeset in the Hit Parade charts, but that was of no use to punters, who still couldn't pronounce it. Let's call it IV.

The cover of IV famously shows an old building, half torn down, with a tower block visible through the demolished wall.  On the remaining part of the old wall, there's a photograph of an old man in a countryside scene, bent double under a load of sticks. 

The symbolism seems clear enough-- the old ways are being replaced by the new, and the old man in harmony with nature (taking from it only sustainable twigs rather than destroying it) has given way to a new paradigm. 

Mystery has always surrounded the identity of the old man. The official story is that Robert Plant (the lead singer) found the photo in a junk shop in the British Midlands (alternatively, in Berkshire) and that's it. Fans have sometimes been unable to consider the photo as simply a found object and prefer to read extra significance into the man. The fans' stories have ranged from the photo depicting Aleister Crowley (an occultist - guitarist Jimmy Page is a student of his methods) to the photo showing George Pickingill, a farm laborer more excitingly known as the Father of Modern Witchcraft. 

Good news! There has been a breakthrough in identifying the man and the photographer. The BBC is reporting that the 'original' photo has been found.  I'm not sure what 'original' means in this context, as Plant must have thought he was buying the only copy. (People didn't make a lot of paper copies of photos back in the day.)  The beeb describes it thus: 

The figure is most likely Lot Long from Mere in Wiltshire, photographed by Ernest Farmer.

Brian Edwards, from the University of the West of England (UWE), found the original picture when looking through a photograph album for other research.

"I instantly recognised the man with the sticks - he's often called the stick man," he said.

The article shows the photo in situ on a photo album page, with three other photos taken by Ernest Farmer. The album is dated 1892 in Farmer's handwriting.  The photo itself is labeled "a Wiltshire Thatcher."

Mr Edwards then set about researching thatchers from that time period, and said his research suggested the man pictured was Lot Long, who died in 1893.