The Green Man is
a symbol of uncertain origin common in the British Isles. Classic examples are
most frequently found among the stonework in and on churches, though it is
more likely pagan in nature. It depicts
a man with foliage for hair, usually with either a leafy beard or with
leaves growing out of his mouth and nose. A similar nature spirit is the
wild man of the woods, the woodwose.
Other possible references to him
are Green George, Jack-in-the-Green, and the Green Knight.
The image of the Green Man is popular with modern Wiccans and other Neopagans.
A Green Man is a
sculpture,
drawing, or other representation of a face surrounded by or
made from
leaves. Branches or
vines may sprout from the nose, mouth, nostrils or other
parts of the face and these shoots may bear flowers or fruit.
Commonly used as a decorative
architectural ornament, Green Men are frequently found on
carvings in
churches and other buildings (both secular and
ecclesiastical). "The Green Man" is also a popular name for
British
public houses and various interpretations of the name appear
on inn signs, which sometimes show a full figure rather than
just the head. Wikipedia
The famous English outlaw who robbed from the
rich to give to the poor was first heard of in a Latin clerical
chronicle in 1354 in which Robin was a trespasser in a royal forest.
As early as 1438 a ship was registered at Aberdeen with the name Robin Hood, and in 1486 King
Henry VII watched Robin Hood pageants
at York. The English outlaw was in sixteenth-century Scotland a cult
figure, probably because of his resistance to English authority.
Tennyson saw the fabled figure as an alternative to the values of
modernism.
We may see
Robin Hood’s death, coming as it does on the day before Christmas,
the ancient festival wherein the forces of the new were born again,
as an allegory of the annual ‘death’ of the vegetative process.
The next day, following the Winter
Solstice, the process begins anew and the days grow ever longer,
bringing life back to the soil. Such
are the myths and legends associated with death-rebirth
deities, especially at Yuletide.
In his colour of
Lincoln Green and his presence in Sherwood Forest,
Nottinghamshire,
Robin is a cognate of the archetype, the Green Man, a symbol
of uncertain origin common in Britain and Ireland.
Classic examples of the Green Man are most frequently found among
the stonework in and on churches, in the borders and decorations of
bibles and other religious works – he is even carved, under the
instruction of Michelangelo,
on the tomb of Pope Julius II in
Rome – though it is more likely pagan in nature. The
French called him tete de feuilles (head of leaves) and the
Germans called him blattmaske
(leaf mask) or blattqesicht.
In the English tradition, this sprite is also called Robin
Goodfellow or Puck, and may be depicted with a goat's cloven hooves
like Satan and the wood-dwelling satyr, Pan
(pictured at left), Greek god of shepherds and flocks. In Roman
mythology, he is the god Faunus.
Other possible references to him are Green George,
Jack-in-the-Green, and the Green
Knight.
The Green Man image depicts a man with
foliage for hair, usually with either a leafy beard or with leaves
growing out of his mouth and nose; sometimes he sports antlers on his
head. One of the earliest known examples of this type of foliate
face is carved on a tomb in France and dates back to 400 CE. Such
images appear in early Western art, stemming from ancient Greek and
Roman mythology: Silvanus, the Roman god of the woods, and Dionysus
(Bacchus). The ancient Celts, too, depicted their god Cernunnos
with horns and leafed hair.
Today’s neo-pagan thought identifies the Green Man
as the symbol of the qualities of godhood within the male, as well
as being an expression of the life/death/rebirth cycle.
Was the king's man a … queen?
“… The reassessment is based on studies of the
14th-century ballads of Robin Hood, the earliest known accounts of
his deeds, which detail his relationships with his ‘merrie
men’, especially Little John and Will Scarlet …” Source
“Robin Hood is mentioned by name in the official
documents (pipe roll) for Yorkshire of 1230 (1225 by some counts),
where he is described as 'Robertus Hood, fugitivis,' who has
failed to appear in court. He is mentioned also as an historical
figure in Wyntoun's Chronicle of Scotland c.1420. A book published
in Scotland in 1521 places his life in the time of Richard I.”Source
Green
Man illusion
(look for the lovers)
A midsummer night’s imp
Watch out, watch
out, there are imps about! Charles Kightly in his The
Perpetual Almanack of Folklore (Thames and Hudson, 1987) tells
us that the red-stalked Herb
Robert (Geranium
robertianum) blooms
around English houses in June, associated
with Summer Solstice (June 21)
and Midsummer (June 24).
(In North America, however, it is a noxious
weed.) Herb Robert is also known as Death-come-quickly,
Robin's eye, Robin Hood, Robin-i’-th’-hedge, Stinking Bob,
Stinker Bobs and Wren flower.
Weed or
not, beware how you treat it, for it is Robin
Goodfellow’s
flower and he might direct a snake to bite you, especially if you
destroy it.
Robin Goodfellow is an English imp, a
trickster from the woods. As a forest dweller, he symbolises the
pagan (wood-dwelling) pre-Christian peoples who the Church worked
hard at converting from their wicked ways. Robin is a cognate of the
famous European Green Man (a name coined by Lady Raglan in
1939 for a medieval image usually found in churches), and of Robin Hood.
The English sometimes called him Puck, frequently representing him
as a goat, while the Irish knew similar fantastic beings as Pooka. In Killorglin, County Kerry, Ireland
annually on August 10-12, a goat is still the mascot of the ancient Puck’s Fair. We will recall
that the forest-dwelling, horned
godPan of classical
times, and satyrs
like him, are part goat.
Shakespeare portrays him in Midsummer
Night’s Dream as Puck. An engraving
from Robin Goodfellow,
His Mad Pranckes and Merry Jests (1639) shows him with cloven
hooves and a prominent erection, surrounded by a coven of witches.Brewer’s
Dictionary of Phrase and Fable describes Robin Goodfellow
thus:
“A ‘drudging fiend,’ and merry
domestic fairy, famous for mischievous pranks and practical jokes.
At night-time he will sometimes do little services for the family
over which he presides. The Scotch call this domestic spirit a brownie;
the Germans, kobold or Knecht Ruprecht. The
Scandinavians called it Nissë God-dreng. Puck, the jester of
Fairy-court, is the same.”
Puck is the British Isles version of the
lusty pagan Pan whose erotic appetites so disgusted the Christian
authorities. In the Inquisition’s infamous Malleus Maleficarum
(‘Hammer of the Witches’), of 1486, by the monks Heinrich Kramer
and James Sprenger,Part 1,
Question 3 deals with the origins of ‘familiar spirits’. It
concludes ...
Satyrs are they who are called Pans in
Greek and Incubi in Latin. And they are called Incubi from their
practise of overlaying, that is debauching. For they often lust
lecherously after women, and copulate with them; and the Gauls name
them Dusii, because they are diligent in this
beastliness.
For those who fear this forest imp, putting out a
cup of milk for Robin Goodfellow is one way his impishness might be
placated. Reginald Scot, in Discovery of Witchcraft, 1584,
wrote:
Your
grandam's maids were wont to set a bowl of milk before him …for
grinding of malt or mustard,and
sweeping the house at midnight. He would chafeexceedingly,
if the maid of the goodwife of the house,having
compassion of his nakedness, laid any clothes for him. For in that
case he sayeth. "What have we here? Hempen, Hampen, here will I
never more tread nor stampen.
Our
last word today goes to the Bard, who
wrote of Puck:
Either
I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
Call'd Robin Goodfellow;
are you not he
That frights the maidens of the villagery;
Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern
And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;
And sometime make the drink to bear no barm;
Mislead night wanderers, laughing at their harm ?
Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,
You do their work, and they should have good luck. A Midsummer
Night's Dreamii. 1
William Shakespeare, 1594Source
And
can the physician make sick men well?
And can the magician a fortune divine?
Without lily, germander, and sops-in-wine,
With sweet-briar and bonfire
And strawberry wire and columbine.
With in and out, in and out, round as a ball,
With hither and thither, as straight as a line,
With lily, germander, and sops-in-wine,
With sweet-briar and bonfire
And strawberry wire and columbine.
When Saturn did live, there lived no poor,
The king and the beggar with roots did dine,
With lily, germander, and sops-in-wine,
With sweet-briar and bonfire
And strawberry wire and columbine.
Text by Anonymous
, from Robin Goodfellow: commonly called Hob-Goblin, with his
mad pranks and merry jests, 1628 (probably
written before 1600). Set by Peter Warlock
(Philip Arnold Heseltine) (1894-1930), 1926, published 1927Source
When She danced on the water and the
wind was Her horn
The Lady laughed and everything was born
And when She lit the sun and the light gave Him birth
The Lord of the Dance first appeared on the Earth.
"Dance then, whereever you may be
For I am the Lord of the Dance," said He
"And I'll lead you all, whereever you may be
And I'll lead you all in the Dance," said He
I danced in the morning when the world
was begun
I danced in the Moon and the Stars and the Sun
I was called from the darkness by the Song of the Earth
I joined in the singing and She gave me Birth
"Dance then, whereever you may be
For I am the Lord of the Dance," said He
"And I'll lead you all, whereever you may be
And I'll lead you all in the Dance," said He
I dance at the Sabbat when you chant the
spell
I dance and I sing that everyone be well
When the dance is over do not think I am gone
I live in the music so I still dance on
"Dance then, whereever you may be
For I am the Lord of the Dance," said He
"And I'll lead you all, whereever you may be
And I'll lead you all in the Dance," said He
They cut me down but I leap up high
I am the Light that will never never die
I live in you if you live in me
I am the Lord of the Dance said He
"Dance then, whereever you may be
For I am the Lord of the Dance," said He
"And I'll lead you all, whereever you may be
And I'll lead you all in the Dance," said He
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