Any info about the green man?

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: Spleen Cringe
Date: 17 Nov 08 - 12:14 PM

It is. Du Chien.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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,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: 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: 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: GUEST,BigDaddy
Date: 18 Aug 08 - 05:59 PM

"The Green Man" by Martin Donnelly is lovely.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Nerd
Date: 18 Aug 08 - 04:35 PM

I just got to have a look at the "Three Hares" project above...that IS amazing!

Les, I'm sorry no one answered your posts of

13 Aug 08 - 02:25 AM (My paraphrase: did the green man emerge from the churches into the plays, and if so, so what?)

and

13 Aug 08 - 07:20 AM ("It seems a fair assumption that nobody would mess with the early church by putting pagan symbols in the walls.")

Both good questions/points which deserve further mention.

As to the first one, I don't think most people would say the green man entered the dramatic tradition from the church walls. The "wild man of the woods" who by the 16th Century seems to have been covered with leaves and called "green man" is actually an ancient literary character type (we'll avoid the baggage of the term "archetype," which I agree is problematic). As such it goes back to Gilgamesh, one of the very first literary plots we have, so it is old indeed. Although Enkidu of Gilgamesh did not use leaves, at some point the idea of the wild man reached countries that were heavily forested, where this would be a natural thing for a wild man to do. At some point prior to the 1570s, the character type started to be called a "green man," after the leaves he was wearing.

Characters like this existed in literature and folklore all over Britain and Ireland (Lailoken in Scotland, Myrddin in Wales, Suibhne in Ireland). So the wild man/green man of the plays may be derived simply from such literary and folkloric figures. Certainly such figures exist in European literature and folklore before the foliate head begins appearing in cathedrals.

The question, then, is: was the "Foliate Head" derived from such figures, or were some of the same ideas being expressed by both? This is hard to answer, because people who carved foliate heads didn't comment much on them. But the connections that Centerwell points to suggest that the two traditions were associated by some people as early as the high middle ages.

On to your second point: I don't necessarily agree that no-one would "mess with" the Church by incorporating pagan elements into the design. In fact, practically everything in the Jewish- Christian- Islamic complex of religions WAS based on earlier polytheistic elements. Furthermore, it was a policy of the early Church to adapt elements of local pagan practice in order to facilitate the assimilation of pagan groups.   

For both of these reasons, it's certain that items with pagan origins were indeed featured in churches. Baptismal fonts, censers, and other elements of Church architecture and furniture were surely adapted from pagan predecessors. Churches themselves were often placed directly on the sites of previous pagan worship.

As a good example, angels and demons, which came to Christianity through Jewish tradition, were based on the gods of Judaism's pagan antecedents, especially those of Canaanite mythology. So every angel you see in a stained glass window is, in fact, a medieval imagining of a Christian interpretation of a pagan god.

Those who claim the foliate head may also be a medieval imagining of a Christian interpretation of a pagan god therefore aren't making a wildly extraordinary claim. It's just never been proven. And, as Insane Beard would point out, the people who make this claim often then ascribe meanings to the pagan god they imagine is being represented, which are hard to square with reality.

To connect your two points, most pagan gods who seem to have had a meaning anywhere close to the one that New Agers try to ascribe to the Foliate Head, such as Sylvanus, resemble the wild man/green man of the plays much more than the foliate head. For this reason, a strong connection between the Foliate Head and the Wild Man/Green Man would lend a little much-needed support to the idea of a Foliate Head as a pagan deity.

More cautious observers like Insane Beard try guard against the new agers' glibness in interpreting these traditions. Therefore, they emphasize the small amount of evidence that exists for such a connection.

For myself, I do not dispute that there is a only small amount of evidence. I don't have any particular attachment to the idea that the Green Man has some connection to pagan deities, and I haven't seen any compelling evidence of it. But I do think it should be recognized that

(1) the evidence that we do have is not all recent, and some of it may date back right to the high middle ages.

(2) There is no particular reason NOT to think there is some connection between the Foliate Head and pre-Christian religion, as there is with almost all other elements of Christianity. But this is no reason to jump to conclusions about the meaning of the Foliate Head in general, or about the meaning of any individual example of the Foliate Head.

and

(3) if the Foliate Head is somehow connected to pagan mythology, his appearance in churches is not particularly anomalous or unusual--although specifically Celtic pagan elements are rare.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 18 Aug 08 - 06:06 AM

I'll have to think about that, Nerd. Meanwhile, here's a ingenious Victorian leaf-mask (in a neo-Classical context!) from Waterstones in Preston, Lancs:

Leaf Mask, Preston

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Nerd
Date: 18 Aug 08 - 01:02 AM

Oops. That should have been "disgorging..."

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Nerd
Date: 17 Aug 08 - 11:03 PM

To clarify, Insane Beard seems most fond of disgorginf foliate heads. Only a few of the NYC ones in this book disgorge leaves. Most are faces made of leaves.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Nerd
Date: 17 Aug 08 - 11:01 PM

No, Insane Beard, it's a brand new book called Faces in Stone, by Robert Arthur King. It's got pictures of many, many faces on NYC buildings, only some of which--50 or so--are foliate heads.

You can see more about the book here.

Although the description of the publisher says "one hundred architectural details," they really mean details from one hundred buildings. In fact, I estimate there are about 200 details, about fifty of which are foliate heads.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 17 Aug 08 - 05:02 AM

I have a book that's got about 50 foliate head photos from NYC, and no doubt there are more

Would that be Nightmares in the Sky? I picked it up in a charity shop in Lytham St Annes for 50p! A truly amazing book. I'm looking at Foliate Heads in a secular / municipal context too, and the North West of England seems particularly well served. Here's a few of my favourites:

Blackpool (Hotel?)

Preston (Waterstones)

Chester, Lanes

One the puzzles here is that whilst the Victorians were evidently very fond of Foliate Heads, they seem to be a feature of the Neo-Classical rather than Neo-Gothic, where one might expect to find them. As I mentioned above, the Neo-Gothic Roman Catholic Cathedral in Norwich is replete, but, in general, the buildings of the secular Neo-Gothic seem a tad bereft. In Manchester, for example, one might scour the magnificent Gothic Town Hall in vane, whereas the surrounding Classical buildings are particularly well served. This is just an observation of mine by the way, if anyone can provide examples to the contrary I'd be interested to know about them.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 17 Aug 08 - 02:42 AM

There are changes in fashionable architecture, just as there are in fashionable clothing.

Foliate heads on buildings were probably seen as old fashioned at some point, but like the mini skirt and flared jeans, they come storming back into fashion every now and then. Some, like mini skirts are welcomed, others, like flared jeans, should be left to the annals of history and never ever seen again.

LTS

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: GUEST,Nerd
Date: 17 Aug 08 - 01:18 AM

Dwile flonking is a fascinating topic in its own right, and probably deserving of its own thread. Any dwile flonking songs?

Back to foliate heads, one thing that is surprising is the extent to which this tradition still exists. For example, in New York where I was born and raised, there are many foliate heads carved into buildings, primarily between about the Civil War (1860s) and the Great Depression. I have a book that's got about 50 foliate head photos from NYC, and no doubt there are more.

The question that occurs to me is: was there a "gap" of several hundred years when no one carved foliate heads, or have stone carvers continued to use this motif in an unbroken line from the middle ages?

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 01:47 PM

Dwile Flonking - sounds kind of early Romano British as 'ell as like

Good try though os ludio ludius...

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 12:12 PM

Really?

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: GUEST,Dwile Flonker
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 11:45 AM

Interestingly, Dwile Flonking is mentioned in the annals of the Roman Historian Taciternius in the context of Pagan Celtic Druidic ritual, He mentions the competitors as wearing masks made of oak & holly leaves, with branches of same clutched between their teeth. In his own words barbarus presencia illorum viridis foliatus stipes os ludio ludius...

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 03:03 AM

I competed in a team in the "All Cheshire Finals" around 1971 or 2 at the Chester Festival. It's all a haze now.

I seem to remember two sides, one "In" as in cricket the other "Out". Each member of the "In" team came forward in turn to "Flonk" and had a stick with a beer soaked rag or Dwile in the end. The "Out" team formed a circle around the "Flonker" and moved around holding hands.

The "Dwile" was "Flonked" at members of the "Out" team and points were given - something like three for a head, two for a body, one for a leg. If the "Flonker" missed S/he had to drink a pint of beer in one go.

I suspect the "game" has evolved since. I have this vague memory that it came from the Goon Show in the 19 50s or at least from Michael Bentine but I am not certain about that.

Cheers

Les

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 08:20 PM

Okay, Les - reluctant to trust Google on so obviously significant a subject as Dwile Flonking, and being of a folkloric bent with regard to getting things from horses mouths... Enlighten me!

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 07:00 AM

Pre-Christian - certainly pagan or what Liz?

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 05:23 AM

I too have Dwyle Flonked - was disturbed to see on Channel 5 TV last Wednesday that in Gloucestershire they do it without a blindfold... it's much more fun when the flonker can't see.

LTS

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 02:32 AM

Nerd, you are communicating with one who has been Dwile Flonking!

Wassail, so to speak

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Nerd
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 01:56 PM

Les,

haven't you heard of the ancient Celtic fertility gods known as the green hare and the big green rabbit?

(Pull the other one, it's got leaves on...)

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 07:45 AM

Excellent night at the Saracen's Head - Rachel's birthday too, so it was nice joining in with celebrations for Bernard's 60th! Has Thousands or More ever sounded so melodious?

Otherwise; Three Hares / Tinners Rabbits... interesting stuff, though they have altered their earlier ideas on the green man since I contacted them, prior to this they were pushing the usual Raglanite line of pagan folkloric fertility emblems. I instinctively baulk at the mention of archetypes in any context however. Jung seems to be the cornerstone of a lot of new age claptappery that I find irksome in the extreme... Otherwise, yes - fascinating stuff, though I've not seen many in my travels, though there is a mediaeval tile of such a design reported in Chester Cathedral.

The area of the north Fylde now occupied by Fleetwood was, as recently as 1836, a rabbit warren...

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: GUEST,JT
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 06:23 AM

[Rabbits have] always been a food stock, not a hunting pursuit

Not sure about that, Liz. See www.rabbithuntinginfo.com, for example

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 06:16 AM

Sea,

trust you had a good time at the Saracens Head?

The Hare Project is amazing. Does it have a lot to do with Cathederel builders?

sorry my computer is playing up - must close

Les

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Nerd
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 05:51 AM

Liz,

There's "my last farewell to Stirling":

"No more I'll wander through the Glen
Nor Disturb the roost of the pheasant hen
nor chase the rabbit frae his den
when I am far frae Stirlin'-o"

There are two different songs called "The Broomdasher," which is a gypsy word for a rabbit-catcher; the better known has been collected several times from the Levi Smith family.

Getting back to the middle ages, the animals on, for example, the Lady and Unicorn Tapestries in the Cluny are certainly rabbits and not hares. There is a late medieval tapestry called "Rabbit Hunting with Ferrets," which I've seen in the Fine Arts Museum in San Francisco. The Unicorn tapestries in NY have the juxtaposed deer and rabbit I was speaking of, visible here.

At this page, they positively identify that as a rabbit--it's too chubby and short-eared to be a hare!

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 05:24 AM

The book to look out for is The Leaping Hare by George Ewart Evans & David Thomson - a fine overview of the hare in folklore, mythology, natural & oral history etc. One of my many bibles!

On the subject of hares & green men, check this out:

Three Hares Project.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 04:57 AM

That was supposed to be 'hunting the rabbit', there IS a song called 'hunting the hare'...

The Bonny white Bunny has possibilities.... as does The Laidley Coney.... just don't sing them on Portland, Dorset. They don't like bunnies there.

LTS

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 04:36 AM

Liz,you have opened new possibilities.

The White Rabbit of Howden awaits as does the Bonny Black Rabbit - just too good to miss!

L in C

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 04:16 AM

Rabbits to me have always meant food... we bred them ourselves to eat. It was something you did in the country, and a habit picked up from when my grandfather supplied half the village with rabbit meat during the war. They've always been a food stock, not a hunting pursuit - no-one ever wrote a song about 'hunting the hare' or 'the bonny black bunny' did they? (I'm happy to be surprised).

I still reckon the pictures depict hares, both in England and mainland Europe. Hares have a much more ethereal folklore about then... moon gazing and boxing matches, that sort of thing. But we're digressing. Again.

LTS

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Nerd
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 02:06 AM

Liz,

Good point. Rabbits were, as you say, introduced to England by the Romans and again by the Normans in the 12th century. Rabbits were being bred for eating in England by the 1220s, their skins were a profitable enterprise there by 1305, and in 1555 a Swiss naturalist wrote: "There are few countries wherein coneys do not breed, but the most plenty of all is in England." Depending on when in the period we are talking about, rabbits may or may not have been running wild in England.

Whether they were or no, rabbits still were well known to the English. Many English people traveled to the continent, and many read--primarily, of course, in French and Latin. To many English people rabbits would always have had the meanings I was talking about, just as lions were understood to mean strength even though there were no native lions in England.

More generally, I have (as you can see from the above) been including the continent in my comments. Rabbits and deer were commonly used on tapestries and paintings throughout Europe to express some of the meanings I mentioned.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 12:32 PM

My feelings entirely, Les - but the other problem comes in trying to establish any sort of clear pre-Christian precedent for who the pagans think their Green Man might be. There is a famous example in which an exquisite foliate head is daubed with the graffiti SYVANUS; many assume the carving & the graffiti to be contemporary, but the disparity of execution is quite remarkable, rather like the pre-historic cup-and-ring carvings in the Rothbury Hills upon which someone has inscribed the legend 'Rock Map'. The book worth looking at here is Marcia MacDermott's Explore Green Men (Heart of Albion), hardly the most promising of titles, and some of the other books in the Heart of Albion Explore series have been panned, but this one is perhaps the clearest work to date on the Green Man / Foliate Heads, especially given the plethora of bogus pagan / folkloric studies currently on the market. A recent book, self-published, attempts to prove that all Foliate Heads derive from The Legend of the Rood, discussed here and on the other thread. This is interesting, but in terms of iconographic consistency it falls at the first fence given the sheer diversity of physiognomy on offer even in the most naturalistic of carvings, as well as the paucity of triple disgorgers, but as pet-theories go it's interesting, and the only one so-far that attempts to account for The Green Man (so-called) in a Christian context.

I might add that only culturally I am a Christian, but only in the sense of Christ being the first Communist, as I was brought up to believe. To me, the Foliate Heads are a manifestation of the socio-psycho dichotomy of Material Dialectics, the Nature-Nurture Debate & a generally Marxist overview of human struggle in general. This essentially dualistic view of things, whilst heretical in the middle-ages (Gnosticism) is remarkably entrenched into the theology of the time in which nature, particularly human nature, was increasingly seen as the work of the devil. Contradictions abound of course, such as Hildegard of Bingen's concept of Viriditas, but none of Foliate Heads would appear to embody this transcendental spirituality...

Enough! We're off to Lymm! See you there??

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 07:20 AM

It seems a fair assumption that nobody would mess with the early church by putting pagan symbols in the walls.

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 06:54 AM

"To go back to the symbol of the rabbit, I can offer the following analogy: rabbits and deer. In medieval iconography, they are often shown together."

Rabbits were introduced along with a lot of other things, by the Romans, but they didn't roam wild about the country until much later than the mediaeval images mentioned. The 'rabbit and deer' image is more likely to be the hare and hart.

LTS

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 06:27 AM

For a long time after the Reformation, Catholicism was labelled as pagan by Protestants and almost certainly still is in some quarters!

Subject: RE: Any info about the green man?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 06:10 AM

so to call it 'Norwich Anglican Cathedral' when it was rebuilt between 1297 and 1430, is erroneous

LTS - I call it Norwich Anglican Cathedral to differentiate it from the Norwich Roman Catholic Cathedral. My belief is that the Foliate Heads known as Green Men (or rather The Green Man!) are an integral aspect of the culture & theology of Pre-Reformation Roman Catholicism which, as you say, built the cathedrals in the first place. I am alarmed by the Anglican proclivity to promote the Foliate Heads as being pagan, though at Gloucester Cathedral there is a charming leaflet pointing out that this is most certainly not the case.

I visited the Norwich Roman Catholic Cathedral (consecrated 1873!) for the first time back in June as was delighted to find a plethora of fine Foliate Heads throughout.

Norwich Roman Catholic Cathedral, Column Base