When you stand inside a great church or cathedral, like Southwell Minster or Norwich Cathedral, and look up at the soaring, intricate stonework of the vaulted ceiling, you might notice something out of place. Nestled among the bosses, you'll find a grotesque, stone face, with leaves and vines sprouting from its mouth. These carvings, known as "foliate heads," were a popular decorative motif during the 16th century, but their true significance has been lost to time. We don’t even know what medieval people called them, as the term "Green Man" is a romantic, modern invention. So, what exactly is this leafy-faced being?
The silence of history has allowed us to speculate. Was the Green Man a secret pagan deity, carved into the church by a hidden cult of stonemasons risking their lives for their ancient beliefs? Perhaps, but it seems highly improbable that a figure associated with the Roman god of revelry, Bacchus, would find a comfortable place within austere Christian walls. While a small number of these carvings feature vines and grapes, the vast majority are adorned with oak leaves and hawthorn, and crucially, Bacchus is never depicted "vomiting vegetation."
Another, more grounded theory is that the Green Man was a visual warning, a stark reminder of the earthly temptations that a devout Christian was meant to transcend. A constant call to reject the pagan impulses of the untamed natural world. And yet, trees themselves hold a sacred place within Christian symbolism. The Tree of Jesse, a popular motif that traces Christ's lineage, and the legend of Seth, who planted seeds from the Tree of Knowledge in his father's mouth to produce the wood for the cross, suggest that the "veneration of trees is not an exclusive domain of pagan belief."
It was the Victorians who truly breathed life back into the Green Man. With their fascination for ancient origins and idyllic rural traditions, they first forged a strong connection between the medieval carvings and later folk customs like the "Jack in the Green" and the "Buryman of South Queensferry." They revelled in the notion that pre-Christian religions had survived, hidden within rural folk traditions. They romanticized these celebrations, seeing innocent maypoles as "blatant phallic representations of earthly fertility." This romanticism was not an uncovering of old beliefs, but rather a creation of new ones, a revival that continues to shape our perception of the Green Man to this day. This is particularly clear in modern paganism; by the 1950s, figures like Gerald Gardner were inextricably linking the Green Man with the God of the Witches, a potent, revitalised archetype.
This resurgence of the Green Man is not confined to spirituality. As a prime modern example, the King's coronation invitation featured the Green Man as a central motif. While this caused some controversy—with one former member of Mumford & Sons writing a "shitty article about how Christian England had fallen and everything was woke"—the image serves as a powerful testament to the enduring presence and relevance of this ancient, mysterious figure.