Any info about the green man?

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 18 Aug 08 - 06:25 PM

specifically Celtic pagan elements are rare

That's an important point. I think 'pagan' in this context usually means, or at least implies, 'survival from local religions predating the Roman imposition of Christianity', so the importation of pre-Judaic gods into Judaism & hence Christianity isn't really relevant here.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Nerd
Date: 18 Aug 08 - 08:08 PM

Actually, it may be relevant..."leaf masks" and "foliate heads" turn up in Mesopotamia and Lebanon by the first and second century AD. So I would argue that if they are pagan, foliate heads are more likely to be either middle-eastern pagan, or classical pagan, and brought west as part of Christianity--just like angels, etc.

I agree with you, though, Pip, that that isn't what most new age green man fans want to believe...they mostly want to believe in a Celtic pagan provenance, which is very tricky to prove.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: GUEST,Sam Pirt
Date: 02 Sep 08 - 12:03 PM

Wow great info all, I think I have plenty of info about the histor of the green man etc.. BUT

Have you any actual song words, mummers play words, dances & rituals linked to the to the green man and when these occur??

Thanks again all, Sam

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: ericjs
Date: 16 Nov 08 - 05:33 PM

The greenery emerging from the mouths of many of these foliate heads looks distinctly to me like grape vines. Note the leaf shapes, and in a few cases, the presence of actual grapes (such as on the bench end). Might there be a connection between these figures and alcohol?
This might explain why, if there were connection between these heads and the term "green man", the term was appropriate for pubs and distilleries.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 16 Nov 08 - 10:45 PM

Forgive me if I already said this, but the heads may not be 'disgorging' the leaves. They could be eating the leaves.

What artist wants to stir up associations with somebody barfing?

Perhaps the ancient images of a creature eating leaves was an acknowledgement of our dependence (and the dependence of our flocks) on plants for survival.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 17 Nov 08 - 04:29 AM

They could be eating the leaves.

Let me assure you, the foliage is always issuing from the mouth, or other facial orifices, not so much disgorging (as is the accepted term but growing therefrom in terms of vigorous affliction. See Norwich Cloiser for an example of a multiple orifice disgorger.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Stu
Date: 17 Nov 08 - 05:03 AM

"although specifically Celtic pagan elements are rare"

I would suggest the whole notion of Celtic paganism as a the defining influence on pre-Christian religion is a red herring anyway. Although it undoubtedly plays a part, I wonder if the ideas and concepts it introduced were simply absorbed into the indigenous culture similar to the way the Bon religion has been assimilated into Tibetan Buddhism.

George Ewart-Evans championed the idea that traces of our pre-Roman society remained in the folklore, customs and rituals of ordinary working rural people as a cohesive belief system up until the First World War when so many were slaughtered on the battlefields of Europe. The industrialisation of agriculture led to the demise of working horse teams, the change in agricultural practices and the subsequent loss of beliefs and customs that went with them. When we lost this continuity, we lost a "cast of mind" (to quote Ewart-Evans) that provided a context for the old magic and lore to exist in. Perhaps that is why we struggle to see the truth of Green Men and foliate heads; we need to be looking back at a our old folklore to gain insight into these intriguing figures.

The Three Hares link was brilliant - how fascinating is that?

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 17 Nov 08 - 05:06 AM

One tradition from the 1970s was "Don't cross now- the Green Man's flashing"

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 17 Nov 08 - 05:33 AM

we need to be looking back at a our old folklore to gain insight into these intriguing figures.

The folkloric context for the Green Man is a bit of a red herring as what we are dealing with here is a didactic icon integral to the architecture and theology of pre-Reformation Roman Catholicism. Any folkloric associations are the result of a much later Zeitgeist - certainly no earlier than 1939 when Lady Raglan first put the name to the face - a fashionable sort of wishful thinking that misconstrued such imagery to the extent where now it is seen primarily as being somehow pagan. The tide is changing on this, however so slowly, and not before time....

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Stu
Date: 17 Nov 08 - 06:58 AM

I realise we can't deduce anything about the Green Man from simply trying to imagine ourselves back into our ancestors shoes, but conversely I think we struggle to understand him because we don't have the outlook of them either; it's becoming an alien way of thinking when faced with the vacuous nature of modern society and the cynicism towards all things spiritual this generates. I personally am not really religious at all, although I do believe birds are dinosaurs and I do occasionally raise a glass to all those souls who have contributed to Kid on The Mountain over the years.

". . . didactic icon . . ."

Hmmm, I'm not so sure about this. I might be missing something in the thread but what is he teaching us again? The Southwell Minster image you posted is very intriguing. The fellow sitting there does not seem in distress, his pose suggests authority or confidence. He could be teaching, certainly.

"integral to the architecture and theology of pre-Reformation Roman Catholicism"

Are all foliate heads in English Churches pre-reformation then? Do they exist in Welsh, Scottish or Irish Churches? Do they exist in Protestant churches built after the reformation (or is there a continuing tradition of them being made for Catholic churches built since?)

IB have you been to se Lindow Man at Manchester Museum - I hope you left an offering if you did!

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 17 Nov 08 - 07:08 AM

"George Ewart-Evans championed the idea that traces of our pre-Roman society remained in the folklore, customs and rituals of ordinary working rural people as a cohesive belief system up until the First World War"

Most if not all serious scholars think their is almost no evidence whatsoever for this.

Wassail

L in C

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 17 Nov 08 - 07:57 AM

I realise we can't deduce anything about the Green Man from simply trying to imagine ourselves back into our ancestors shoes, but conversely I think we struggle to understand him because we don't have the outlook of them either

We do have the context however, which is the fabric of church architecture & the theological perspectives which they serve, otherwise they wouldn't be there in such profusion, nor would they be so stylistically consistent in their depiction of figurative human physiognomy however so stylised. The Southwell Minster misericord is pretty exceptional as a full-bodied GM, but it appears to be part of a narrative sequence made up of the images on the adjacent misericords - see Here for more. What that narrative is, isn't too clear, though in other tableaux we see the same figure liberating himself of the fronds, and other figures sprouting similar fronds from their backsides! It's worth bearing in mind here that misericord imagery operates on a similar level to the marginalia of (say) the Macclesfield Psalter (lots of green men there!) which at first glance would appear to represent something quite different to the text, but wouldn't be there without it.   

Are all foliate heads in English Churches pre-reformation then? Do they exist in Welsh, Scottish or Irish Churches? Do they exist in Protestant churches built after the reformation (or is there a continuing tradition of them being made for Catholic churches built since?)

Pretty much yes they are, certainly the significant ones anyway, which is to say an overwhelming majority that would indicate that there is a didactic purpose to such things, though the tradition of the image carries on to a lesser extent after the reformation. They certainly exist in Wales (indeed Lady Raglan's seminal thesis was inspired by those at Llangwm, in Monmouthshire), Ireland and Scotland (both St. Giles cathedral in Edinburgh and nearby Rosslyn Chapel are remarkably abundant). The post-reformation work on the exterior of Manchester Cathedral features a fair few Green Men, albeit styled on the pre-reformation ones found on the column capitals within; the 19th century bosses of Blackburn Cathedral are very fine too (though the real treasure there are the misericords from Whalley Abbey). The Roman Catholic Cathedral at Norwich (1910) is full of Green Men, many of which are on the column bases - see Here. One can't say for sure if the didactic tradition is embodied in these carvings or if their purpose is merely decorative / imitative of earlier imagery in the context of Gothic Revival - you certainly don't find them in other modern RC architecture, but in these carvings we find the same sense of everyman as we do in the medieval images, rather than the folkloric figure of the Green Man. Whatever the case these remarkably vivid carvings are certainly worth a look if only by of contrasting & comparing with those of the middle ages in the now Anglican cathedral.

IB have you been to se Lindow Man at Manchester Museum - I hope you left an offering if you did!

Manchester museum?? Never heard of it! The cultural dimension of our recent visits to Manchester have been taken up with the Holman Hunt at the gallery (all three Lights of the World, Isabella and more besides) but next time I'll be sure to check it out. What's acceptable as an offering these days?

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 17 Nov 08 - 08:02 AM

George Ewart-Evans

Whatever the case, I'm a great fan of George Ewart Evans. I think the documentation of such things is a good deal more important that their interpretation and in this respect Mr Evans's work is more than worthy. One accepts his conjectural flights of fancy as par for the course, an aspect of subjective genius which is welcome in any context.

Now, won't somebody post on my In Appriation of Dolly thread???

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Stu
Date: 17 Nov 08 - 11:19 AM

"Most if not all serious scholars think their is almost no evidence whatsoever for this."

Ah, but then I'm not a serious scholar. Ewart-Evans has a unique perspective on this subject given that he actually collected the material himself, first-hand from working people. His interpretation is as valid as any other; indeed more so if they didn't collect themselves. I would like to read some of these arguments countering Ewart_eveans interpretation of his material though Les, if you could provide links or refs I'd be grateful.

Ewart-Evans' work appeals to me as I don't share the view that there is a total lack of continuity from pre-Roman to now, especially with regard to belief systems and customs. Of course much of the study of this sort of thing relies on tales that are probably apocryphal or so altered from the original as to be useless, but much may survive.

IB: Thanks for the info and links. The Southwell sequence is fascinating, and perhaps illustrates well your argument about understanding the context (er, that was my argument too albeit from a different viewpoint) and misinterpreting the evidence, which must be why you enjoy the Pre-Raphelites so much; plenty to misread in those paintings for the uninitiated, which is nearly everyone born after 1900 in their case.

I can't say I'm too much of a fan. I was when I was an art student in Macclesfield (whose Psalter seems to have been misplaced by the townsfolk) and we had a good long look at the Pre-Raphelites, but they don't do it for me any more: I much prefer Rothko.

The Museum at Manchester is excellent (for a provincial institution). The Lindow Man exhibition is small but quite good (you'll especially enjoy the modern druidesses input), and the whole subject has been dealt with sensitively. It's nice to see the oft-forgotten affirmation that like our neighbours England is a country with Celtic roots, and some of the artefacts you can handle are wonderful.

Whilst you're there, nip into the Palaeontology hall and see the cast of the T. rex Stan, brought over by Phil Manning from the Black Hills Institute. It's a wonderful cast in a controversial running position but has a real wow-factor too, due to being a big skeleton in a small hall.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 17 Nov 08 - 11:47 AM

Take a look at this:

Reveiws of The Sations of the Sun

Sorry that should be the Stations but I think it will get you to some book reviews on Amazon of that remarkable book.

I can't sum up the book very easily but he provides an amazing amount of evidence around the "Ritual Year". The idea that any kind of coherent collection of beliefs and/ or practices have survived hundreds and hundreds of christian domination seems a bit unlikely.

!9C "scholars" made up all sorts of stuff and because they could read and write rather well people thought they might know something. If they think beliefs and/ or practices have survived they should give evidence of the inbetween. They generally don't

Chiz

L in C

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 17 Nov 08 - 11:55 AM

which must be why you enjoy the Pre-Raphelites so much

I hate the fuckers to be honest, though exceptions do prove rules; and it is nice to see Isabella and the Pot of Basil, whom I've grown up with (she generally lives at The Laing in Newcastle) & the lesser Light of the World, which resides in the chapel of Keble College, Oxford, where it took on a particular significance for me, once and long ago. The rest of it I could live without, though I do have an odd fondness for Mr Waterhouse's Hylas and the Nymphs which is worth a jaunt to the gallery alone - just ask my long suffering wife!   

Looking forward to the museum - sounds the bollocks.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 17 Nov 08 - 12:14 PM

It is. Du Chien.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Stu
Date: 17 Nov 08 - 12:33 PM

"I hate the fuckers to be honest"

That got a belly laugh!

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 17 Nov 08 - 12:57 PM

Do they exist in Protestant churches built after the reformation (or is there a continuing tradition of them being made for Catholic churches built since?)

Relatively few churches were built in England from Edward VI's time until the Restoration, by which time the building style had changed from the Perpendicular style- the nice clean update of the "Gothic" or Decorated style which is the one commonly associated with mediaeval churches- to the rather florid "English Baroque" style in which niecties like gargoyles and green men had no place.

Catholic churches were of course not built until the 19th century emancipation, by which time they wouldn't want to be associated with the mediaeval stuff- though they took that up again, as did the CofE, with later Victorian romanticism, like the Oxforn Movement.

So I thgink you can be pretty certain any Green Men are either mediaeval or toy.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Nerd
Date: 18 Nov 08 - 11:37 AM

Sigh. I think Insane Beard has muddied the waters here.

Stigweard suggested that "Perhaps that is why we struggle to see the truth of Green Men and foliate heads; we need to be looking back at a our old folklore to gain insight into these intriguing figures." He was clearly treating "Green Men" and "foliate heads" as separate entities, and suggesting that both of them could be understood with reference to folklore.

Then Insane Beard leaps to the rescue, once again asserting the folklore has nothing to do with it: "The folkloric context for the Green Man is a bit of a red herring as what we are dealing with here is a didactic icon integral to the architecture and theology of pre-Reformation Roman Catholicism."

Insane Beard has it kind of backwards, though. What he meant to say, I think, is that applying the folkloric context to the FOLIATE HEAD is a bit of a red herring. The GREEN MAN proper is not any kind of didactic icon of church architecture, but a folkloric character, specifically one from ritual drama and pageant, as I've pointed out above. The character is a very, very old feature of folklore and literature, and the name "Green man" was common for the character in English by 1578.

Insane Beard does not think there are shared meanings between the Foliate Head and the Green Man proper. Thus, he thinks the folkloric context (which includes the Green Man) is inapplicable to the Foliate Head.   

IB also discounts as wishful thinking the idea of Lady Raglan, that the foliate head is in fact a manifestation of the same character as the "green man." However, current scholarship suggests that Lady Raglan was at least partly right. In several artworks created between the 1300s and the 1600s, such a connection is implied (it's all detailed in the thread above).

My own position: while the jury is out on the strength of the connection, there is indeed a connection between the Foliate Head and the Green Man.

Thus, I think the jury is out as to whether looking to folklore can shed light on the Foliate Head. But looking to folklore can surely shed light on the Green Man proper, as Stigweard suggests. There's no need to leap on his comment and discount it immediately, as IB seems eager to do.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 18 Nov 08 - 11:57 AM

Relatively few churches were built in England from Edward VI's time until the Restoration,

Many of the pre-Reformation Green Men are to be found on the choir stalls, rood screens, bench-ends, misericords etc. which were being made right up to the reformation, and certainly valued thereafter as indicated by the survival of the many fine sets that remain in churches and cathedrals throughout the country. Mention has been made of the Whalley Abbey misericords to be found in Blackburn Cathedral (which include a particularly fine depiction of The Fall - see Here). These date to around 1430 and are the work of a Mr Eatough. They were moved upon the dissolution of Whalley Abbey and split between churches at Whalley, Blackburn and Cliviger. It is rare to find words on such carvings, but here we find the lustful wild-man accompanied by a moral proverb - Penses molt et parles pou - (think much, speak little) (see Here) and a warning against folly in the shoeing of the goose (see Here). Here too are two of the finest Green Men carvings of this (or of any) period (see Here and Here) set with sure purpose into this unambiguously moral gallery, however so wordly, however so decorative the execution and however rustically charming to us today. Thus, their didactic nature becomes clear when considering the work as a whole, rather than viewing them in isolation, which of course was never the intention.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 18 Nov 08 - 12:19 PM

Sigh, indeed.

Yes, Nerd - for the sake of clarity I'm using Green Man to mean Foliate Head, though that clarity obviously does not extend so far as to the vague notions of the Green Man as pageant figure, which have little (or nothing) to do with the extant folkloric figures Lady Raglan was thinking of when she named the foliate heads Green Men.   

As you've indicated, the link is indeed very fine - so fine as to be barely perceptible, being based on a notion that links the Green Man to the wild-man carvings, which in any case would appear to serve a definite didactic purpose other than depicting carnival figures (see my previous post for an account of the wild-man figure at Whalley which is depicted in terms of animal lust) and those few (two?) Foliate Head carvings where shields / clubs are present, which are historically and stylistically miles apart.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Nerd
Date: 18 Nov 08 - 03:58 PM

Insane Beard,

I don't know what you mean by "vague notions" of the green man as a pageant figure. They aren't vague at all, but very well described in stage directions from the 1570s on. The earliest of these suggests that everyone will know what a Green Man looks like, the later ones describe the costume more fully, and the latest suggests that the term Green Man is going out of vogue, replaced by woudmen or wild-men, except among sign-makers. This suggests that the term has some currency before 1578:

"Two men, apparrelled, lyke greene men at the Mayors feast, with clubbes of fyre worke." (1578)

"Comes there a Pageant by, Ile stand out of the greene mens way for burning my vestment" (1594)

"Two disguised, called Greene-men, their habit Embroydred and Stitch'd on with Ivie-leaves with blacke-side, having hanging to their shoulders, a huge black shaggie Hayre, Savage-like, with Ivie Garlands upon their heads, bearing Herculian Clubbes in their hands" (1610)

"men in greene leaves set with work upon their other habet with black heare & black beards very owgly to behould, and garlands upon their heads with great clubs in their hands with fireworks to scatter abroad to maintaine way for the rest of the show" (1610) [describing the same pageant as the above stage direction, hence referring to a character explicitly called Green Man]

"In the front of all before these, twenty Savages or Green Men, with Squibs and Fire-works, to sweep the Streets, and keep off the Crowd" (1686)


"They are called woudmen, or wildmen, thou' at thes day we in ye signe [trade] call them Green Men, couered with grene boues: and are used for singes by stiflers of strong watters." (late 17th century)

It's clear that by this time, the Green Man is perceived to be the very same figure sometimes called Wild Man, Wodemen, or Wodewose, as the above makes clear. This was apparently not always true, but it was true by the late seventeenth century.

Now, this figure is also certainly the same as one of the two folkloric figures Lady Raglan talked about, the Green Man of the inn sign; indeed by the seventeenth century, as we see from the quote above, it was primarily in the sign trade that the figure was called Green Man, and it was used mostly to represent liquor, hence it was a natural sign for both distillers and pubs.

The question as to whether this character in renaissance and restoration pageantry is closely related to the leaf-colored figures of later English folk drama (the ones Lady Raglan observed) is an open one. Your assertion that the one has "little (or nothing) to do with" the other doesn't make it so. It is often the case that a familiar element of earlier folklore and popular culture is retained and adapted in later years. (e.g. Pulcinella of 17th Century Neapolitan Commedia becoming Punch of early twentieth century English puppet theatre.) Were the leaf-covered figures of early twentieth century folk drama derived from the leaf-covered figures of earlier English drama? Many people think so, both within the scholarly world and outside it. You may disagree, but you shouldn't present your guess as an established fact.

Finally, your assertion that the link is "very fine" because it requires "a notion that links the Green Man to the wild-man carvings" is more or less nonsensical, as the quotation above shows pretty clearly that many people understood "the Green Man" and "the Wild Man" to be two different names for the same character--the hairy man with leaves and a club. This is exactly the character depicted in the "wild-man carvings" you mention. "Wild-man carvings" is of course a name imposed on these carvings later; they might just as likely have been called "green-man carvings" in 1534 when they were made. We simply don't know. Whatever the case, the "wild-man" carvings depict two figures that were already by 1578 called "Green Men," and they are emerging from the ears of the Foliate Head.

This link to the Green Man may not be the primary meaning of the Foliate Head, but it is there all the same, creeping uncomfortably out of the cracks in your certainty.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 18 Nov 08 - 06:05 PM

Whatever the case, the "wild-man" carvings depict two figures that were already by 1578 called "Green Men," and they are emerging from the ears of the Foliate Head.

Well something is emerging from the ears of the Foliate Head, Nerd - but Green Men? Either way this is but one (see Here) of a number Foliate Heads on the Crowcombe bench ends made on the very cusp of the reformation, and quite possibly in reaction to it. One is depicted with dolphins spouting from his ears (Here) - what are we to make of that I wonder? In fact, a closer look at these (so-called) Green Men reveals that they too would appear to have rather fishy tails... I actually like Mr Centerwall's idea - I wouldn't have linked to it otherwise; I also like the idea of The Legend of the Rood as written about by James Coulter in his The Green Man Unmasked (Author House, 2006) but neither Coulter nor Centerwall cover nowhere near enough bases given the variables involved. Indeed, Mr Centerwall's Pageant Hypothesis barely covers one - thus, once again, it remains easier to say what they most certainly aren't.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Nerd
Date: 18 Nov 08 - 08:03 PM

Well, the "fishy tails" hypothesis only works if you also assume that the Foliate Head itself is covered in scales rather than leaves. The bad photo you linked to doesn't show it well, but it's clear that whatever is covering the midriffs of the emerging club-wielders is the same as what covers the head of the "foliate head" (i.e. leaves). It's much more visible in the clearer picture Here. Particularly in the more-visible figure on the right, you can see that the vein structure in the leaves at his midriff is identical to the vein structure in the leaves on top of the the foliate head: each leaf has a strong central vein, and consequently looks not much like a fish scale.

In addition, you can see that their shields are flowers, and each has a big leaf growing out of his head and one growing out of his midriff.

I grant that their bottom parts below the leaf-skirts do not look like legs. What it looks like more than anything is that there is some kind of seed-pod, trumpet or tube growing our of each ear of the foliate head, and standing in each tube is a Green Man. (Note the marked absence of scales on the tubes, as well) But those are definitely leaves, as the foliate head's head-foliage demonstrates.

The fact that a different bench-end features dolphins is irrelevant. It's like me telling you that Santa Claus is associated with elves in popular culture, and you making the retort that he's really associated with reindeer. I'm not drawing any conclusion from the fact that the foliate head is connected to the wild man/green man except that the connection exists, and existed in 1534, which is 405 years before 1939. All manner of other connections also existed, without negating this one.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 19 Nov 08 - 05:05 AM

Mr Centerwall's Pageant Hypothesis depends on a particular interpretation of the Crowcombe image in isolation from its immediate neighbours - much less its historical context. If the caving existed in isolation, then fair enough, but it does not, and must, therefore, be taken in the context of the other Crowcombe bench-ends, which is why a comparison between the two images is important. If one of the carvings features dolphins emerging from the ears of a Foliate Head, and the other what could well be a depiction of mermen, then that is a far clearer, and more immediate link, than that which Mr Centerwall is proposing. Note, if you will, that Dolphins do not have scales, and that the bodies of those depicted are identical to the tails of the figures Mr Centerwall would have us believe are Green Men. So not in the least bit irrelevant, Nerd - rather crucial to our overall appreciation of the Crowcombe sequence.   

Mr Centerwall has set out to establish a connection between Foliate Heads and the name Green Man which existed in relation to a carnival figure found in post-reformation pageantry. What he has given us, fascinating though undoubtedly it is, is in no way conclusive, although, rather tellingly, he clearly believes it is - even going so far as to state quite categorically that Lady Raglan was right in calling Foliate Heads Green Men. This is one hell of a leap even assuming that we can think of these ear-emerging-mermen to be depictions of the Green Men of renaissance pageantry, which, all things considered, looks unlikely for the reasons I've pointed out above.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: GUEST,AR
Date: 19 Nov 08 - 06:04 AM

DIGRESSION:

I always thought there might be a connection between the Three Hares motif and the Sicilian symbol of the Tricania, which was in turn imported to the Isle of Man where it became the Triskelion. Any thoughts?

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Nov 08 - 07:27 AM

the Green Man festival in Clun (Shropshire) is recent. Within 20 years.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: GUEST,stigweard-a-wanderin'
Date: 19 Nov 08 - 08:35 AM

I've traced my family back to the area of Clun, which is my favorite part of England. The whole area has a quite different feel to it from any other part of the country, it simply feels unlike like 'England' at all.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 19 Nov 08 - 08:59 AM

Wales

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 19 Nov 08 - 09:16 AM

the Green Man festival in Clun (Shropshire) is recent

One thing I'm trying to establish is at which point the Raglanite Orthodoxy of 1939 entered the popular consciousness. Kathleen Basford's seminal - however so circumspect with regards to Lady Raglan's conclusions - work on the subject is 1978, though Anne Ross had all the Raglanite bases covered by 1975 in her Grotesques and Gargoyles. The pub in The Wicker Man is, as we've seen, The Green Man, indicating a certain awareness, though in popular books on Mythology, Folklore and Witchcraft from that time (your local Wetherspoons is a good place to look!) the Green Man is conspicuous by his absence.

In more specialist scholarly works, such as the King Penguin volumes Medieval Carvings of Exeter Cathedral (Cave, 1953) and Misericords (Anderson, 1954), we find the Raglanite Orthodoxy firmly in place, though oddly enough both volumes avoid the term Green Man when naming the plates, preferring Foliate Mask and Head-with-Leaves respectively.   

Am I naive to imagine the average Mudcatter's bookshelves to be bending down with all manner of folkloric reading matter? If not, then please be so good as to cast an eye over your precious tomes and see what you come up with...

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Stu
Date: 19 Nov 08 - 01:30 PM

"Wales"

Except it isn't. At the moment. And apart from the place-names, I'm not sure it's that Welsh at all, just very different. Wales, which is where they mostly came from on that side also doesn't feel like England.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Nerd
Date: 19 Nov 08 - 05:18 PM

Insane Beard,

I see what you mean, but I do not think the bodies of the dolphins look identical to the bottom halves of the wild men/green men in the other bench-end. I think they look similar, but not identical.

Whether Dolphins have scales is, of course, irrelevant. Mermen do have scales, and if these are mermen, they should have scales covering their tails. At best, then, these are "men with dolphins' tails."

As I've pointed out, those leafy bits around the wild men's midriffs are clearly leaves, as they are identical to the leaves on the head of the foliate head. Other photos, such as the one in Basford's book, make this even clearer. They are also carrying clubs. So even if these figures were considered to be men with dolphins' tails, they would be a specific kind of men with dolphins' tails, that is, wild men/green men with dolphins' tails.

Mermen do not carry clubs (not an effective weapon under the sea!), but wild men/green men do. Mermen do not wear leaves, but wild men/green men do. These figures do. At the era in question (or at any rate, by a few decades later), a partly naked, hairy man with a club, wearing leaves, was understood as a "green man," and that's what we see in the bench-end, whether merged with a dolphin or not.

I also note that you yourself referred to these figures as "wild men," until I pointed out that at the time "wild men" and "green men" were synonymous. Then suddenly they weren't wild men anymore, they were mermen. (With clubs. And leaves.)

I don't dispute that the crowcrombe sequence has meaning as a sequence. But each individual bench-end also has meaning, and each individual element in each bench-end has meaning too. That's how meaning works. If you want to ask "what did the Green Man figure mean in the sixteenth century," you look for examples of a figure that conform to sixteenth-century descriptions of "green men," which these do, and you look at the contexts in which they appear, of which this is one. If you want to ask "what did the Crowcombe bench-ends mean," you look at each of them individually and all of them as a sequence. They are two different questions and require two different approaches.

I appreciate your combing your folklore books. The question of tracing the "Raglanite orthodoxy" is an interesting one. I'll see what I can find out, when I have time to look.

To really look into folklore that had vanished by the time antiquarians and folklorists began collecting the stuff, of course, we need to look into various primary sources. You won't find evidence in books on "folklore" per se. And, sadly, the primary sources are very unlikely to say "we see this figure as a nature deity," even if people did! But in any case, it was never my contention that people saw the Green Man OR the Foliate Head that way....

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Nerd
Date: 20 Nov 08 - 02:13 PM

In my haste yesterday (I had to run to a rehearsal), I forgot to explain WHY I didn't think the bottoms of the wild men/green men on one Crowcombe bench-end looked like the dolphins' tails on the other bench-end. For some reason, the medieval European idea of the dolphin usually gave its whole body a kind of saw-shaped character, with sawtooth fins all along the body, as visible here.   These sawtooth fins are clearly visible in the dolphin bench-end here. But the tails or tubes on the "wild man/green man" bench end, here, are completely smooth, until you come to the leafy sheath around the midriffs of the figures, which as I pointed out, are purposely made identical to the leaves on the foliate head.

Furthermore, in the dolphin bench-end, the dolphins are not, as Insane Beard said, emerging from the Foliate Head's ears. They are, rather, positioned above the head, so that they appear to be sitting atop it. Thus, the tails' flukes are plainly visible in the center above the head, and the tails appear to be bound together below the flukes (in the center above the foliate head), with a human figure arising out of the tails.

Note that the Foliate head that has dolphins on it, however, does have SOMETHING coming out of its ears, which is unconnected to the dolphins. That something looks like a leaf, trumpet or seed-pod, and is essentially smooth. THAT's what the human figures seem to be growing out of in the wild man/green man bench-end, a smooth-sided leaf, trumpet or seed-pod that emerges from the Foliate Head's ears, just as one does in the dolphin bench-end.

I agree that these are all matters of interpretation. Both the dolphins' tails and what I am calling a leaf or seed-pod have an abstract design of circles and lines on them that is very similar, which I am sure is one of the things that made Insane Beard see them as identical. But, as I've pointed out, there are other reasons to think the tubes on the wild man/green man bench end are neither dolphins' tails nor fish tails. The fact that they don't look like the medieval idea of a dolphin's tail (as do the tails on the other bench-end), or have scales like a fish tail, is one reason. The fact that they are growing OUT of the foliate head's ears, like the leaves on the other bench-end, is the other. That makes me think they are meant to represent vegetation, not an animal feature.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 Nov 08 - 07:06 PM

Furthermore, in the dolphin bench-end, the dolphins are not, as Insane Beard said, emerging from the Foliate Head's ears.

Take a closer look, Nerd.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Nerd
Date: 20 Nov 08 - 10:46 PM

If you're telling me that that's another set of smaller dolphins, you'll have to provide a better photo...

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Nerd
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 12:58 AM

Insane Beard,

On the other question of when the Raglanite idea was emerging into popular consciousness, I'd say the books you cite, Anderson et al, are the first step. It picked up speed in the 1960s, and was firmly entrenched by 1967. In that year, Ronald Johnson, the American poet, was able to write The Book of the Green Man. He described the poem as an English seasonal poem, and gets in everything from Robin Hood to Tolkien. In the notes, he wrote the following passage. Note that, although Raglan might not have been aware of the seventeenth-century figure from processions, Johnson was.

Note also the reference to Grigson. Though he doesn't specify, I suspect this is Grigson's 1948 work An English Farmhouse and its Neighbourhood. If I were you, I'd track that down. If Grigson made direct reference to "The Green Man" in this regard, it's an important and very early link in the chain from Lady Raglan into the popular imagination.

Johnson also mentions Nikolaus Pevsner elsewhere in his notes. This important writer on architecture was an early adopter of the name "Green Man" for the Foliate Head. I'd look at his 1945 book The Leaves of Southwell.

Anyway, here's Johnson, followed by some more notes.

"The Green Man" of the title is not a poetic metaphor, merely, but is still to be seen in England. It is not uncommon for pubs or inns to be called by his name, a hold-over from times when he was a current legend and was deeply associated with Robin Hood, and the Green Knight in Gawain and the Green Knight. But he is most often to be found, today, as the face with sad, heavy-lidded eyes occupying the corbel of an arch in churches. There, he has branches growing out of either side of the mouth, or is bearded in leaves with more foliage springing from the forehead, or is garlanded.

    As King of the May, or Jack-in-the-Green, he has a persistent history that can be traced back to May Day celebrations throughout Northern and Central Europe. Geoffrey Grigson writes that traditionally "on May Day in the village plays and ceremonies he was sacrificed dying for all the death of the plants in winter." In former times he was also marched in the London Lord Mayor's Day Parade enclosed in a wooden framework on which leaves were clustered and from which came explosions of fireworks. Chimney sweeps paraded beneath the same pyramidal frameworks on May Day until the nineteenth century. One imagines them coming like small boxwood topiary, crackling and sparkling through the streets.

    Lewis Spence adds a less typical, later variant: "I have seen him at South Queensferry, on the southern shores of the Firth of Forth, where he is know as the 'Burry Man', a boy on whose clothes large numbers of burrs or seed-cases have been so closely sewn that he presents the appearance of a moving mass of vegetation."

    He is also seen, of course, in the guise of Arcimboldo's "portraits" of the seasons or as the fanciful Seventeenth Century Gardener pictured in herbals and gardening books in a finery of flowers and of vegetables. Or, the reverse side of a coin, as the Mandrake - a plant forming itself in the shape of man. The hand that seems to sprout leaves at its wrist and is used in this book is a pseudo-mandrake - actually a radish. Its nineteenth century engraver, copying a seventeenth century painting of this miraculous radish, was, perhaps, both over-credulous and over- exuberant. Not only are there illusionistic finger joints, but a thumb-nail as well. The World of Wonders, No. 3, also mentions "another radish, exactly resembling a human hand, in the possession of Mr. Bisset, secretary to the museum at Birmingham, in 1802. He declared in his letter that the fingers were quite perfect, and that a large sum had been offered for it and refused."

After Johnson, I wonder if the 1969 Kingsley Amis novel The Green Man, which links the pub name to a sexually sinister spirit called "The Green Man," and further links all that to seventeenth century occultism, suggests that Raglan's idea was known to (and being turned on its head by) Amis.

By the 1970s Raglan's firmly entrenched in the Pagan community...for example Bob Stewart said in Pagan Imagery in English Folksong(1977):

"As a fertility-power, George is known as Jack-in-the-Green, or the Green-man, or Green George...."

The Children's book "The Green Man" by Gail E. Haley (1979), which is said to be based on a mythical English figure of the same name, seems promising, but I don't have it.

That should give you some books to chase down!

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 04:15 AM

"The hand that seems to sprout leaves at its wrist and is used in this book is a pseudo-mandrake - actually a radish."

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 05:48 AM

you'll have to provide a better photo

Somewhere, I've got a disk of the complete Crowcombe bench-ends in stunning clarity. Somewhere, as I say - but after two complete house moves in 9 months (the joys of relocating during a recession) complete with various degrees of storage & related chaos means that things have still to turn up! So - would that I could oblige, but even from Steve's picture (mypsace always compress images anyway) you can see dolphins emerging from the ears. You can even see they're quite smooth and that they don't have the circle markings of the tails of the mermen - but they are emerging from the ears of a foliate head, and they are rather fishy; possibly four in all, two going up, two going down.

Mermen do have scales, and if these are mermen, they should have scales covering their tails.

You seem to know an awful lot about mermen, Nerd - having never seen one myself I couldn't really comment ;-]. Otherwise - who might second-guess the intentions of the Crowcombe Master who goes to such great trouble to show us the date of his great work (see Here)? And what are we to make of the other, often quite savage, imagery found in this context, dolphins and mermen notwithstanding (see Here and Here for the detail)? And given such an obviously aquatic association, might not those leafy fronds just as easily be be sea-weed? Whatever the case, I'm sure it wasn't the intention of the Crowcombe Master to be in any way figurative at all.

It is invariably the case for Foliate Head Theorists to view their pet subjects in isolation even from the fabric of the buildings which are their sole context, let alone the theological purpose of those buildings, or else their place in history. Whatever the case, Mr Centerwall's thesis rests entirely on the rather impossible notion that would link the intention of the Crowcombe master of 1534 to the sculptor (which he names as one William Lyngwode) responsible for the Winchester spandrel figure of more than 226 years earlier (see Here). It is thus that Mr Centerwall feels justified in making the statement: It appears that Lady Raglan was right. The name of the foliate head - labelled the "Green Man" by Lady Raglan - was the Green Man. This is the sort of reasoning that, in the words of the good doctor, must, I fear, be dismissed as ineffable twaddle, hatched as it is by isolating the facts to fit a rather threadbare theory born from the pure coincidence that certain carnival figures of the English Renaissance had the same name as that chosen by Lady Raglan for Foliate Heads in 1939. As Mr Centerwall sagely points out any leaf-covered figure is bound to be called the "Green Man" sooner or later. Well if not the "Green man", then certainly a "Green Man", which is a crucial distinction in discussing the The Green Man as most understand the term today, pagan associations and all.      

As for wild men - we see a lot of hairy feral club-wielding types in the art of the middle ages. I've already mentioned one in an indisputable moral context on an important Lancastrian misericord from 1430 (see Here) which not only predates the earliest post-reformation Green Men as referenced by Mr Centerwall by 150 years, but places the figure very firmly in the moral & theological context of the time (the inscription reads Penses molt et parles pou - think much, speak little). Thus, the dialectical nature of such imagery becomes apparent - which is central to their didactic purpose. In the medieval Bestiary, or Physiologus, we find him named as the Satyr - hairy, club-wielding, symbolic of evil in general and of lust in particular. Well we might speculate on whether or not the club-wielding Satyrs served as the inspiration for Mr Centerwall's carnival Green Men of the English Renaissance, and to what extent, if any, their symbolic purpose survived the journey from the solemn to the frivolous if this is, indeed, the case.

I'd look at his 1945 book The Leaves of Southwell.

I'm skimming through The Leaves of Southwell as I write, a book remarkable in its omission of the obvious contenders from the chapter house - though we do see one of the lesser figures on plate 28. On p32 he mentions the de Honnecourt text-book, but his discussion is more to do with the manifest disparity between botanical and physiognomical realism. The Foliate Heads of St. Frideswide's Shrine, Oxford are illustrated, but passed over completely in the discussion of their foliate context! Just a skim, as I say, but no mention of the Green Man. Of course, a publication date of 1945 doesn't mean it was written in 1945, and even if it was, considering world events between the publication Raglan's seminal thesis and that of Pevsner's account of Southwell it's not inconceivable that he wasn't aware of it. Now there's a question - what's the earliest indication that he was?

Thanks for the other stuff, Nerd - invaluable!

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 11:13 AM

Hello, pip radish. Thanks for your post; it gave me a chuckle.

If the mandrake is the radish, then you have made it into the poetry of John Donne.

Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

===========
In the past I've wondered whether 'wind' (in the sense of moving air)ever really had a long i sound. I think from this we can conclude that it did.

Note the reference to mermaids singing. So they must have scales, otherwise they couldn't sing, only wail.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Nerd
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 02:12 PM

Insane Beard,

I still can't see the smaller dolphins. They look like leaves in that picture. However, I will take your word for it, since you have seen the better pictures, and I imagine, the bench-ends themselves, and I haven't. I would say that most likely, if there are fishy things coming from his ears, they are probably fish. The ones on top of his head look like medieval north-European dolphin iconography, the others look quite different. Still, that makes little difference to your overall argument. Or to mine, which was really about a different bench-end.

I think we're at an impasse, where you will continue to give reasons why the bench-end figures on the other bench can't be "green men," and I will continue to give reasons why they can. The same evidence that makes you think it's impossible makes me think it's possible!

I will point out that the leaves on the "wild men" in the other bench-end cannot be seaweed, again because they are identical to the leaves on the foliate head.

I will also point out that your introduction of a spandrel with a wild man and a foliate head from 150 years before we have a literary reference to a "wild man" as a "green man" does not at all invalidate my argument. The fact that wild man figures were associated with foliate heads, and that such figures were sometimes called "green man," merely shows (as I have been arguing) that these two traditions (the foliate head and the wild man/green man) were connected long before 1939. The earlier you show me the two figures connected, the earlier I will believe the connection was made.

I have not given this the interpretations that either Centerwell or Raglan gave for it, but you continue to argue against me as though I had. But even for Centerwell's argument, your picture is not an impediment. Indeed, as you say, the figure you showed might well have inspired the pageant "Green Man." What bearing does this have on whether people might have called the leafy head "green man" as well? "Think much, say little" was already a common proverb at the time, and continued to be for hundreds of years. I don't see how its occurrence with the figures relates to whether they represent a connection between leafy heads and a figure that looked like what people called a "green man." I've never argued that these figures DON'T occupy "the moral & theological context of the time," and neither has Centerwell. You seem to think one of us made that argument somewhere.

The person you're REALLY arguing against is Raglan. Which is fine, but both Centerwell and I agree with you on all that.

So let's move to your other question, as to when the Raglan Orthodoxy took over.

I haven't seen the Pevsner book I recommended, but it is the one cited by Johnson in his notes to the Green Man poem, which is why I thought you should look there. However, I had another reason for recommending him in general. In Simpson & Roud's Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore, in the entry on "The Green Man," they say:

Despite the fragility of Lady Raglan's argument, her term was adopted for foliate heads in several books on church art by M. D. Anderson in the 1940s and 1950s, in the authoritative series of Buildings of England guides by Nickolaus Pevsner, and finally...by Kathleen Basford.

So, I guess if you want to find out when he started to use the term, you'll have to line up his books from earliest to latest, and look through them! Sorry I can't be more help there...

The same may be true for Grigson. Johnson says elsewhere in his notes that he'd read all of Grigson's books, and he specifically cites An Englishman's Flora as well as Farmhouse. So I'd look in those two first.

Because of the way Johnson quotes him in my post above, it's hard to tell whether Grigson uses the name "Green Man" or not, but the quote about him being sacrificed annually and the name "Green George" indicates that, either he had read Lady Raglan's take on Frazer, or he had read Frazer directly.

Another thing to keep in mind: a good deal of "The Raglanite orthodoxy" preceded Raglan's 1939 article, even the connection between foliate heads and "Jack-in-the-Green." The only piece of the puzzle that she adds in 1939 is applying the name "The Green Man" to the Foliate Head. But the connection of the Foliate Head itself to the whole complex of pagan nature-myth had already been accomplished.

I'll quote from Lord Raglan's 1936 treatise The Hero, in the bit about Robin Hood:

"It is probable, as we have seen, that Robin Hood is Robin of the Wood. Now according to Skeat the original meaning of 'wood' was 'twig', and hence a mass of twigs or 'bush'; if this is so, then Robin Hood is Robin of the Twigs, or the Bush, which suggests connections with another well-known figure of the Spring festivities, Jack-in-the-Green, and with the carved faces, with twigs protruding from their mouths, which are a feature of so many of our old churches."

I hope that's helpful!

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 03:25 PM

if this is so, then Robin Hood is Robin of the Twigs

Blimey O'Reilly. There should be a name for this style of writing, where an argument is built out of a disorderly stack of wild speculation and free association, held together only by the will to find something really old to believe in.

According to the OED (yes, he made me look), in the oldest usages of the word 'wood' (9th century CE) it variously means the stuff people make chairs with, the stuff people burn on fires and the places where trees grow. There don't seem to be any usages of 'wood', past or present, to mean 'twig'.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 03:27 PM

Actually, that was ungenerous. Let's say, a disorderly stack of wild speculation, free association and flashes of genuine erudition, held together only by the will to find something really old to believe in.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Nerd
Date: 24 Nov 08 - 07:13 PM

Update on two issues.

1) I have checked the Lady Raglan article, and she doesn't mention "Green George." So Johnson didn't get that from her. Either he had read Frazer's Golden Bough, or one of his other sources, such as Grigson, discusses "Green George."

2) Leeneia: Yes, interestingly, while listening to field recordings of a sailor born in the 1860s, I realized that he pronounced the word "wind" (as in "wind and weather") with a long i, to rhyme with "mind." He did this not only in songs, but in regular speech. He was born either in Maine or in Nova Scotia, but spent most of his life in British colonies such as Sudan, Rhodesia and India, so I don't know exactly where he picked up this pronunciation. But it was apparently normal for some people as late as the late 19th century.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Nerd
Date: 24 Nov 08 - 10:47 PM

Insane Beard,

An even earlier statement of the full "Raglan Orthodoxy" came in John Speirs's 1957 book Middle English Poetry: The Non-Chaucerian Tradition, in the chapter on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Speirs says that the Green Knight is none other than the "Green Man...the Jack in the Green or the Wild Man of the village festivals of England and Europe," and also "descendant of the vegetation or nature god...whose death and resurrection mythologizes the annual death and rebirth of Nature."

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Nerd
Date: 24 Nov 08 - 10:56 PM

Sorry to keep refreshing this, but I just realized the quote I gave was not from Speirs's book chapter, but from his even earlier (1949) article in the journal Scrutiny. So the orthodoxy was fully operational in literary criticism at about the same time that architectural writers began to use "Green Man" for the foliate head. Seems it took over pretty fast!

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 25 Nov 08 - 04:01 AM

Cheers, Nerd - I'm sort of holiday right now, so no time for responses, but I'm checking in - and much appreciative!

Whalley (altered)

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 25 Nov 08 - 04:58 PM

When I was doing Middle English at university, some friends happened on Speirs' stuff about Gawain & found it highly amusing. Apparently he places great emphasis on the Green Man's lair, considered (by Speirs) as a mystic gateway to the chthonic mysteries of the old religion and described (by the Gawain poet) as "nobbut an old cave".

(It's Spiers as in "and Boden", isn't it - so no relation.)

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Sleepy Rosie
Date: 25 Nov 08 - 05:18 PM

Gods, wish I'd done something more interesting at Uni Pip Radish!

This whole thread is way too scholarly and well-read on t'subject for me to engage in any sensible way in, but your comments on the Green Mans Lair, seem to strikingly echo classic Shamanic Otherworld gateway themes. Sounds like your lecturer was using some kinda comparitive study maybe, from which he drew that conclusion?

I'm afaid I get a little Gnostic and resultantly academically lazy regards a lot of this folk-lore stuff (or of course just plain lazy and resultantly Gnostic, which is possibly rather more correct).

Just stare at it with an empty brainbox for long enough... And see what it does to your head. It's so much easier that way, and it aches much less grey-brain-gloop ;-)

Just playing fool here, no intended offence to those discussing the topic in seriousness.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 25 Nov 08 - 05:31 PM

But that's just the trouble, isn't it - if you read the text in the light of your own assumptions, you may end up just reading your own assumptions right back out of it. In which case you might as well save yourself the effort and cut out the reading.

A couple of years after I read Gawain I read Moby-Dick, which demonstrates that everything can have a deeper symbolic meaning - and then goes on to show that, if everything Means Something, then nothing Means any more than anything else, so to all intents and purposes nothing means anything. Now that really blew my mind.