The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #113369   Message #2410992
Posted By: Nerd
11-Aug-08 - 06:01 PM
Thread Name: Any info about the green man?
Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
Liz, the accounts featuring Suetonius Paulinus are from Tacitus's Annals. They are not first-hand, but second and third-hand: Tacitus had them from his father-in-law Agricola, who fought with Suetonius and was present at some but not all of the events.

I am not familiar with any passage from the Annals that features wicker men. You're probably thinking of the famous passage about Suetonius's invasion of Anglesey, in which the Britons used fires, torches, and spooky tactics, but no wicker men.

Tacitus does say that Suetonius's men found altars "slaked with human entrails," though!

Suetonius also put down Boudicca's revolt. He does say of the Britons: "it was not on making prisoners and selling them, or on any of the barter of war, that the enemy was bent, but on slaughter, on the gibbet, the fire and the cross." Again, no wicker men are mentioned in that part of the Annals (Book XIV).