Sorry, leveller - I found Mike Harding's research a bit dodgy - at least as represented in his little book of the green man. He is guilty of conflating not only the Green Man, Jack and the Green, but also John Barleycorn. He presents an extensive bibliography, but no footnotes to justify statements such as

"The Green Man has other manifestations like the Jack in the Green, the character who dances ahead of the May Queen in many May Day processions such as those at Hastings and Knutsford. A lord of misrule figure, he may be also linked to Robin Hood, Robin Goodfellow and Puck."

What are his sources for this assertion? Roy Judge's research would suggest the opposite is true. Kathleen Basford has, IMHO, a fair bit to answer for...but his work is not presented in sufficiently scholarly a manner for you to be able to tell what is his own conjecture, what is evidence drawn from other sources (and precisely what those sources are), and where gigantic leaps and assumptions may be represented as statements of fact.


But perhaps this is a discussion for another thread...

:)