Who is the Green Man?

In May 2023, many gathered to celebrate the coronation of King Charles III of England. On the invitations sent to them, designed by Andrew Jamieson, a heraldic artist and manuscript illuminator, was an intricate depiction of things viewed as quintessentially ‘British’, from wildflowers and herbs, to the elusive Green Man.

The palace explained that the ‘the motif of the Green Man, an ancient figure from British folklore, symbolic of spring and rebirth, to celebrate the new reign.’ Shown ‘crowned in natural foliage’, the form of Green Man is made up of ‘leaves of oak, ivy and hawthorn, and the emblematic flowers of the United Kingdom.’

Charles’ Coronation Invitation - Andrew Jamieson

It’s become commonplace to think of the Green Man as British symbol, and he has now also become synonymous with modern pagan movement (a source of controversy when these invitations were publicised!). I myself have various depictions of the Green Man around my home, from ceramics to painted artworks, and I’ve always been drawn to this figure.

But as with everything, I’m keen to understand the origins of the green man. Where did he come from, and what is his true meaning?

So let’s start at the beginning.

What is a Green Man?

Simply put, the Green Man is a foliate head. He is a motif in architecture and art, of a face made of, or completely surrounded by, foliage, which normally spreads out from the centre of the face. The Green Man is often shown as a disgorging head, with vegetation coming out of his mouth, a foliate head completely covered in leaves, or a head with vegetation from all facial orifices such as the nose and ears.

The Green Man is a very common decorative motif for old churches and cathedrals, and even in a recent trip to Durham Cathedral in North East England, I saw depictions of this figure. You can watch the full video version of this article on YouTube where I take you to Durham to see these figures.

He can be found in historical buildings, on ancient artefacts, but also in modern artwork, jewellery, clothing, and he is even the name of a music festival. If you show the Green Man to most people now, they will typically conjure up images of pagan celebrations or mythological creatures - but how has that come to be?

The Green Man is all around the world

It may be surprising to know (or not at all, given the reputation of Britain to ‘take’ from other countries!), but the earliest examples we can find of the Green Man are not British at all. In fact, he appears on second century Roman columns in Turkey and in Jain temples in Rajasthan. Mike Harding, a folk musician who became enamoured with the Green Man and set off to track him down, gave examples of foliate head figures from Lebanon and Iraq dated to the 2nd century in his book, ‘A Little Book of The Green Man’.

Sculpture of Green Man in ruins of Hatra, present-day Iraq, 2nd century CE By Staff Sgt. JoAnn Makinano

The figure of the Green Man has been found in a Byzantine mosaic dating from the 6th century, and India and Malaysia also their own Green Man. Interestingly, he doesn’t seem to appear in Native American traditions in a comparable way. 

Green Man, Byzantine mosaic, 6th-century CE. Great Palace Mosaic Museum, Istanbul - By Disdero - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

He’s also in Europe, and a late 4th-century example of a green man disgorging vegetation from his mouth is found in France. He’s also been seen in Germany, France, Italy, Holland, Hungary, Poland and of course England, some examples in Wales and Scotland a few rare places in Ireland.

4th Century - The Great Dish - Mildenhall Treasure - British Museum

So could this just be an example of a type decor that was inspiring to English travellers and brought over after being seen in other countries?

Historian and professor Ronald Hutton who is a leading expert on all things pagan seems to think so. He traces the green man to India, stating "The medieval foliate heads were studied by Kathleen Basford in 1978 and Mercia MacDermott in 2003. They were revealed to have been a motif originally developed in India, which travelled through the medieval Arab empire to Christian Europe. There it became a decoration for monks’ manuscripts, from which it spread to churches."

So there you have it. Now, we could just leave it at that and end this article. We can clearly trace the Green Man back through history across the world, and it’s clear this foliate-style head was most-likely not first created in Britain, but I’d like to pull at this thread a little more.

Why do we think of the Green Man as British?

Surprisingly, the answer to this question is that it is mainly down to the writings of one woman, named Lady Raglan. In the 1930s, she became interested in this figure, and published a single article on the Green Man which appeared in the journal Folklore. She investigated the supposed mythic origins of this foliate head, and for the first time gave him a name: The Green Man

The “Green Man” in Church Architecture - Lady Raglan

For the first time, he was named! From this single publication, this name spread, and with it so did the idea of the green man as a pagan symbol, a sign of rebirth, new life and growth. But why did people latch onto this so strongly?

Interpretations

Professor Caroline Larrington who has written a fantastic book called ‘The Land of the Green Man’, has this to say, “As a “vegetation god,” she insists, he has “been shown not to exist.” He was, rather, invented in 1939, “for a world which was beginning to need him, a world in which people were gradually realising how industrialisation was stealthily degrading our planet.” He came to represent “all that the modern world undervalues, excludes or lacks.” He doesn’t appear in stories, “except those invented for him by modern writers,” Larrington explains, but his “appearance, as a hybrid of man and plant, insists that humans are inextricably part of that natural world which we in the West are so keen to subjugate.”

I am inclined to agree with this interpretation and yet I also don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong with this development. Symbols and meanings change over time depending on the cultural circumstances and the people living in that period, and it seems that perhaps this is what the people needed. They needed to see the masculine essence in nature, they needed to latch onto a story that blended man and wild, and they needed someone to be the figure of nature’s endurance.

He’s now become a well-loved figure, with thousands of pieces of art, stories, and emotion entrenched within him. So this begs the question - if we assign a meaning to something where previously there was none, does that not give it some essence and life itself? Why should it not now be true just because it is a recent development?

The Green Man now is a symbol synonymous with British folklore and modern paganism. He is the wild man, the jolly green man, the symbol of growth, virility and new life.

Manifestations

It’s easy to see how the Green Man, once perhaps just a simple decorative piece, fit so easily into British mythology. It seems there is this need in folklore and storytelling to devise this figure of masculinity. A man who is playful and mischievous, yet strong and virile, a wild man of the woods who represents what we often fear but secretly yearn for. Perhaps it’s a reaction to the idea of mother earth and the duality of nature, or perhaps it’s something else, but I want to talk about some of his manifestations here and my thoughts.

Nottinghamshire Robin Hood Statue - History Hit

Robin Hood is one of the first obvious figures that comes to mind. Robin Hood and his Merry Men of the Greenwood are a symbol of endurance and life. They were cast into the woods away from the expectations of society, and they live life by their own rules. They steal from the rich and give to the poor, living so deep in the forest that they are seen as part of the trees themselves. Robin Hood is an enduring figure in British storytelling, and to me it’s easy to see how he could be part of the same idea s the Green Man.

We also have figures like John Barleycorn, an old Scottish folk song. There is a poem with a very similar theme and wording included in the Bannatyne Manuscript of 1568, though it’s likely that John Barleycorn is even older because this Manuscript is a collection of pre-existing works, many coming from the ancient oral tradition. Now, the prevailing theory is that the tale of John Barleycorn is a symbolic representation of the crop of barley being harvested each autumn. 

There’s also the slightly more modern idea of the Holly and the Oak king. This concept, which is seen as pagan, is that the Oak and Holly King must battle when the season draws to an end. So the Holly King will defeat the Oak King and winter will start and so on, for all eternity. It represents the balance of life and nature itself, and how the masculine plays a role.

To me, I also associate the idea of this green man with the horned god. The horned god deserves his own post (and he shall get one), but here I am referring to this idea of a masculine god that crops up so much throughout history in different cultures. Sometimes he is known as Herne the hunter from English folklore (mentioned in Shakespeare’s play the merry wives of Windsor, perhaps adapted from a local legend), or Pan, the greek god of the wild, shepherd and flock, or Cernunnos, the Celtic god with little confirmed history but theories relating him to animals, fertility, strength, endurance.

I can’t help but think also of the Gundestrup Cauldron which was found in a bog in Denmark and thought to date from between 200 BC and 300 AD. It has a really great depiction of a horned figure who can be seen sitting in a cross legged pose, with animals all around him. It has shamanistic undertones, perhaps the meditative position or the animal spirit guides, but of course we cannot confirm the true history and meaning. I could go off on a tangent here about the horned god, but this is just my personal opinion here - I associate all of these masculine gods with each other. To me they are one and the same, and so is the green man as a symbol of masculinity, life and virility.

Cernunnos. (2024, March 28). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cernunnos

There’s also the idea of the wild man of the woods, the wodewose who appears in art and literature of medieval Europe. There’s early references to a ‘wild man’ even in the Bible, as King Nebuchadnezzar II is cast out of society by God to live like a beast.

After the Norman Conquest, we can see groups of ‘wild men’ living out in the forests as social outcasts, such as Eadric the Wild. An explanation is that Eadric was one of a group of people well known in their own day as 'silvatici', who lived outside in tents.

In Arthurian myth, the wodewose makes an appearance in Gawain and the Green Knight, as Geoffrey of Monmouth describes how Merlin / Myrddin retreats into the forest and becomes a ‘Man of the Woods… hidden… discovered by none, forgetful of himself… lurking like a wild thing.’

When considering the Green Man, I always think of the Ghost of Christmas Present from the Charles Dicken’s novel, ‘A Christmas Carol’. This ghost is often depicted as a typical ‘green man’ figure, surrounded by a bountiful harvest of vegetation and food, representing the health and wealth of this man of the land.

I also think of Tom Bombadil from ‘The Lord of The Rings’ by JRR Tolkien. “Eldest, that's what I am... Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn... He knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless - before the Dark Lord came from Outside,” is how Tom Bombadil is described in the book. He is this quintessential folkloric man of the forest; a whimsical, witty figure that lives at one with nature and stays out of the affairs of men.

Tom Bombadil by Tom Hildebrandt

Final Thoughts

To me, all of these figures and the green man are part of the same entity. He is the one we fear and desire. He leaps, growling into the trees, casting off the shackles of society and growing his hair long and matted. The Green Man balances out the Mother Goddess; he is the horned god of the woods, strong, virile and full of mischief.

He is the symbol that humanity needs and clings to after thousands of years; a symbol of the endurance of nature, the cycle of death and rebirth, and the idea that there is still hope of a man who can be true to himself and protect our natural world.