Well, where do I start: -Usually referred to in works on architecture as foliate heads or foliate masks, carvings of the Green Man may take many forms, naturalistic or decorative. The simplest depict a man's face peering out of dense foliage. Some may have leaves for hair, perhaps with a leafy beard. Often leaves or leafy shoots are shown growing from his open mouth and sometimes even from the nose and eyes as well.
It is now a pub, a 19th century free house, and numerous other places all named after him!
Superficially the Green Man would appear to be pagan, perhaps a fertility figure or a nature spirit, similar to the woodwose (the wild man of the woods), and yet he frequently appears, carved in wood or stone, in churches, chapels, abbeys and cathedrals. This is where I first heard of him in my mother's travel journals of 1929 !
@maggiemae The Green Man is one of my favorite mythical figures. I think of him as protecting the life and spirit of the forest (an increasingly difficult job these days). My editor is now reading a manuscript I just mailed him -- it!s about a lonely boy who believes a stranger he meets in the woods is the Green Man himself.
@catwoman2 Sounds as if it is a magical story! He is lonely because he is not good at socialising.... hence reading about him and fantasising in the forests!
Like Maggiemae I believe the Green Man exists as a link between us and the natural world. I love your creation of him. Did you cover someone's face with lettuce and kale? It's just perfect. I think the difference between the Green Man and Pan is the dark side of Pan, the danger of meeting him and panicking. I suppose the GM has a dark side, too, but on the whole he's more benevolent. It's as if his dark side is expressed in the antlered Lord of the Hunt who roams the forest in the night. Is it Cernubus I'm thinking of? Anyway both are part of the ancient British Green World.
I checked and In Celtic myth, Cernnunos is the horned god of the forest and lord of the hunt. He combines aspects of the Green Man and Pan. I love the way the same concepts turn up in myths all over the world -- the hero with 100 faces as Joseph Campbell called it.
Jim -- I thought it might be a plaster cast. What a great idea. I have several plaster heads of Green Men, including one I bought at an English cathedral. Sometime during the year I posted a photo of one which adorns my front porch.
@sandier When I was a starving art student. My friend missed school the day his class made plaster casts to be used in the process of making latex masks. He had to have help because he needed to breathe through a straw while letting the plaster set. I agreed to help him if I could keep the cast.(When you're young the thought of having someone's head sit around your room seems like a good idea), now 20+ years later he sits in my living room greeting friends and scaring away enemies.
It is now a pub, a 19th century free house, and numerous other places all named after him!
Superficially the Green Man would appear to be pagan, perhaps a fertility figure or a nature spirit, similar to the woodwose (the wild man of the woods), and yet he frequently appears, carved in wood or stone, in churches, chapels, abbeys and cathedrals. This is where I first heard of him in my mother's travel journals of 1929 !