You've probably seen images of the Green Man seen around Britain. A face partly obscured by leaves, both the face and leaves generally rendered in stone.
These are seen on churches, among other places. And they do mark a connection between Christian and pre-Christian England. One thing I hadn't realized was that the name "Green Man" had only been used since 1939, when Lady Raglan published it in an article. Her research on the topic was quite thorough, and though she wasn't a prolific author that article continues to be influential. Before her, Green Man figures were known as "foliage heads." Not as catchy.
2 comments:
Images of the Green Man seem self-explanatory in that he represents that we can take humans out of nature but we can't take nature out of humans. The two are intertwined and have been for thousands of years. Perhaps it's an image of Osiris, the ancient Egyptian god who was not only ruler of the dead but also the power that granted all life from the underworld, from sprouting vegetation to the annual flood of the Nile River.
The complex legends about Ishtar and Inanna (Mesopotamia and Sumer) suggest many of the concepts of death and return. The Greeks were very good myth makers too - remember Persephone.
Whereas Lady Raglan was the first to call the Green Man by that name it appears to me that whether it's the Green Man or foliage heads the concept itself is very ancient.
Osiris was, in fact, green, making him look sort of Martian in some images. It's conceivable that he had some influence on these images. Ancient Egypt was a ways away from Merry Olde England, but a Green Man-like figure shows up in old Byzantine art, which drew on Egyptian traditions as well as Greco-Roman ones. Wise people across cultures come to understand how intertwined we are with nature.
The Ishtar and Inanna myths seem to demonstrate that by the time humans started to live in cities, they had already been thinking a lot about the cycles of life and death. Persephone as well. It's a tragic story on the surface but made brighter by its connection to cycles of the season.
Lady Raglan was a great researcher and interpreter, but you're right. The archetype is a very old one.
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