In his festive form the 'Green Man' seems to be a harbinger of spring, a celebration of regeneration. Right across the country you may come across him in other forms, from leafy faces carved into cloisters to local plays, or as the Green George, a relative of our patron saint.Sometimes terrifying, often benign, he can be seen in many old churches, as a leafy mask or with tendrils and leaves emerging from his mouth, on roof bosses, corbels, capitals, tombstones, bench ends, in choir stalls, cloisters and over doorways. More than sixty green men populate Exeter Cathedral.
As a historical presence the Green Man is enigmatic; as a future force he offers a positive face. The leaf stands for the magical transformation of energy from the sun, something that we in our super-sophistication cannot achieve. The tree in its deciduous forms symbolises the cycle of death and re-birth, re-enacted each year as leaves fall and grow again. The Green Man has emerged in our time as a symbol of recognition with nature, of regeneration and hope.
'They found that they were looking at a most extraordinary face. It belonged to a large Man-like, almost Troll-like, figure, at least fourteen feet high, very sturdy, with a tall head, and hardly any neck. Whether it was clad in stuff like green and grey bark, or whether that was its hide, was difficult to say. At any rate the arms, at a short distance from the trunk, were wrinkled, but covered with a brown smooth skin. The large feet had seven toes each. The lower part of the long face was covered with a sweeping grey beard, bushy, almost twiggy at the roots, thin and mossy at the ends. But at the moment the hobbits noted little but the eyes. One felt as if there was an enormous well behind them filled up with ages of memory and long, slow, steady thinking; but their surface was sparkling with the present... like sun shimmering on the outer leaves of a vast tree. I don't know but it felt as if something that grew in the ground - asleep, you might say, or just feeling itself as something between roof-tip and leaf-tip, between deep earth and sky had suddenly woken up.'
Description of Treebeard from 'Lord of the Rings'
Can you find this Green Man in Saltburn?
Where is the Green Man hiding in Guisborough?
