Who Is the Legendary Green Man?

Artists and sculptors have adorned their work with foliate heads for over a thousand years, but the myth of the Green Man only goes back a century. Learn how this motif became an icon in today's episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://history.howstuffworks.com/history-vs-myth/green-man.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff Lauren
Bogelbaum here. Earlier this spring, the official invitation for the
coronation of King Charles the Third created a bit of
a stir because of whom it included, and no, I'm
not talking about any of the participants involved. On the

(00:23):
bottom border of this ornate invitation is a depiction of
what's known by art historians as a foliate head these days,
though it's perhaps more popularly known as a green man,
his face smiling, his beard and hair made of leaves
of ivy oaken hawthorn mixed with a jumble of multicolored flowers.

(00:45):
But I said there was controversy, so what's not to like?
The green man is one of the most popular decorative
tropes in England. Sculptures of his leafy mug can be
found looming over the ceilings of medieval churches and up
from garden paving stones all over the UK and Europe.
Various renderings depict him in different ways. On the coronation invitation,

(01:08):
he appears friendly, but depending on the artist and the
mood of the piece, he can look joyful, goofy, terrified,
ill leering, stoic, angry or downright demonic. His face can
be obscured by greenery, as if he's peeping out through foliage,
or it can overtake and meld with him, replacing some

(01:29):
of his human features with botanicals. Although the Green Man
is one of the most common artistic motifs in Christian
and Catholic churches around the UK and Europe, the story
that we tell about him today is overtly pagan, a
symbol of spring and rebirth, or of nature's ultimate supremacy
over humanity. His connection to the ancient history of the

(01:53):
British Isles is up for debate, but his face on
the invitation of an ostensibly Christian coronation ceremony it did
cause a bit of an uproar. However, The Green Man's
reputation as a powerful pre Christian nature deity was cooked
up less than a century ago by a British aristocrat

(02:14):
and folklore buff named Julia Somerset or Lady Raglan. She
named the foliate heads seen in English churches the Green
Man and invented a fairy tale about his origins. In
a thirteen page article that was published in the March
nineteen thirty nine issue of the journal Folklore. In her article,

(02:35):
Somerset not only assigned a name to the foliot head,
and she likely got green Man from the many English
pubs with that name, but she also identified him as
an ancient god of fertility and strength. She went on
to speculate that ancient Pagans might have engaged in ritual
human sacrifice each May Day, identifying a male member of

(02:56):
the community to represent the god, and then hanging that
man I'm a tree, or decapitating him and placing his
severed head in a tree. Let's be clear, there is
no scholarly evidence to back up Somerset's claims, but this
gruesome story of pagan brutality and hedonism became wildly popular

(03:18):
in the UK. Since then, the Green Man has been
ever more plastered, sometimes literally, over English pubs, inns, gardens,
and even music festivals. There is a green Man Music
Festival in the UK, and the Burning Man Festival in
the US made the Green Man its theme back in
two thousand and seven, if these foliot heads did in

(03:42):
fact represent a powerful pagan god for whom the ancients
on what's now the British Isles ritualistically decapitated people it
would send a bit of a disturbing coronation message. However,
that's almost certainly not the case. Versions of the foliot
Head have been found from as far removed as sixth

(04:02):
century Istanbul, alongside Greek depictions of Dionysus. It's probably found
in the decor of so many Christian churches throughout Europe
because it was an esthetic and often intricate design that
was evocative without being directly religious, a perfect for places
where an artist was allowed to work with secular or

(04:23):
less than serious themes. Early Christians may have viewed the
figure as a symbol of the cyclical nature of Christianity,
or as a nature centric representation of the Holy Spirit,
which breathes life into the world, and the leaves, vines
and flowers flowing from him as a symbol of rebirth.

(04:44):
No matter where or when the Green Man came from,
he's become a neopagan icon, a symbol of English folklore,
and eventually was adopted by the New Age movement in
the nineteen sixties. Modern Pagans sometimes worship him, which does
make his visage an unusual choice for coronation invitation, because

(05:04):
it seems to be inviting controversy. Perhaps by revisiting Robin
Hood or Sir Gowin in The Green Knight, we might
learn more about what green Man has to teach us,
because although he may be watching, the Mysterious green Man
isn't talking. Today's episode is based on the article who

(05:29):
is the controversial green Man on the Royal Coronation Invitation
on HowStuffWorks dot Com written by Jesslyn Shields. A brain
Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot
Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts
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