Hello everyone!
This is TIMOTHEVS!
Have you ever heard of the Green Man?
A Green Man is drawing or carving of a human
face with either leaves instead of hair or
leaves spewing out of the facial cavities.
If you live in a city in Europe or the New
World with buildings dating to the 19th century
or earlier, chances are you’ve already seen
one.
And if you haven’t, you’re very likely
to spot one once you start paying attention
to the doors and façades of old buildings.
The meaning of these Green Men has been much
debated and reinterpreted, but it is often
implied that He was a Pagan Deity that continued
to be worshipped in secret and survived Christianisation.
Let me get back to that in a minute.
In case you want to see one for yourself,
You are most likely to find one on a 19th
or early 20th century building as they were
pretty popular back then and there are still
plenty of buildings around from that era.
But If you’re lucky you, you might be able
to find one on a mantelpiece in a 17th or
18th century house.
You can also encounter them on doors.
Around where I live, they are quite common
on the doors of churches and the like.
In this particular case, the Green Man serves
as a plinth for the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus.
These two characters from Christian mythology
standing as conquerors on top of a non-Christian
creature may indicate that the sculptor wanted
this Green Man to represent a Pagan deity,
but was there in fact a deity that was depicted
in this manner in pre-Christian Europe?
Modern writers and sellers of home and garden
decoration often describe the Green Man as
a representation of the Wine God Bacchus
The reason for this assumption seems to be
the fact that the Greeks and Romans typically
depicted Bacchus with a wreath of ivy on top
of His head, but I personally find this far
from convincing: a wreath on top of a human
head is not at all the same thing as a half-man
half-foliage creature and moreover, Bacchus
was typically depicted as a beautiful man,
while the Green Man usually has more grotesque features.
was typically depicted as a beautiful man,
while the Green Man usually has more grotesque features.
A Greco-Roman Deity that often does have grotesque
features and is also sometimes equated with
the Green man is the woodland Deity Faunus.
However, Faunus is not depicted with foliage
around His face and –unlike the Green Man–
He has goat-horns.
 
antlers.
According to another and somewhat more plausible
theory, the origin of the medieval Green Man
lies in the Greco-Roman depictions of water
deities like Oceanus or Achelous.
However, unlike the Green Man, Oceanus was
typically depicted with crab pincers for horns…
…and Achelous had bullhorns.
By the way, one of them was broken off by
Hercules and turned into the cornu copiae
(“the horn of plenty”).
But does this mean that the Green Man was
a medieval invention that is unrelated to Antiquity?
But does this mean that the Green Man was
a medieval invention that is unrelated to Antiquity?
Not quite, it seems!
There are many Roman mosaics and carvings
that fit the description of the Green Man,
but it’s not always clear whom they represent.
Let’s have a look at a few examples!
A very clear example of a Green Man-like creature
can be seen on the “Great Dish” of the
Mildenhall treasure.
As Bacchus and Faunus also make their appearance
on the same dish, it is very clear that the
face in the middle is not meant to represent
the Wine God nor His horned friend.
There are however several clues that imply
He is a water Deity:
Like the seashells all around Him that separate
the middle part of the dish from the Bacchic
scenes around it…
…the dolphins emerging from His beard…
One of the sea nymphs called the Nereides
riding a half-horse half-fish creature called
a Hippocampus
…
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…and another Nereis riding a Sea God, probably
Phorcus.
So in this case, the Green Man obviously represents
a water Deity, most likely Oceanus…
I’ve encountered several similar
Roman depictions of a Green Man-like creature
where the marine wildlife also points towards
Oceanus.
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Other times though such elements are absent
and yet other times elements that are not
particularly sea-related are present instead.
Is this also Oceanus?
Or is it perhaps a lesser known vegetation
Deity that was depicted in a similar fashion?
In any case, whether they are surrounded by
marine wildlife or not, it seems that Roman
Green Men were primarily decorative in nature,
rather than devotional.
At best, they may have had some kind apotropaic
function (in other words, perhaps they were
believed to ward off evil, like the face of
Medusa).
So is the Green Man of the Middle Ages and
later a Pagan Deity that escaped Christianisation?
Yes and no.
The visual similarity is striking enough to
suspect that the first Medieval Green Men
were made by people who had seen foliate heads
on old Roman buildings or graves, but it is
conceivable that they were no longer aware
of whom they were supposed to depict.
In that case, we can’t exactly say the Deity
survived Christianisation.
Roman Green Men didn’t seem to have a devotional
function to begin with, but if even the myths
that were attached to them were forgotten,
there’s not much left there that can be
called "Pagan".
It’s almost no more Pagan than other architectural
features that were popularised in Antiquity
like say a Corinthian column, or a Tympanum.
Though I have to admit I kind of like the
idea of Oceanus quietly hiding in churches,
waiting to be rediscovered by future generations…
This is a Green Man I carved out of a piece
of beech wood back in 2010.
It probably was one of my more challenging
projects so far, but I think it turned out
okay.
What do you guys think?
(^_°)
That was it for this time!
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Hope to see you again next time!
This was TIMOTHEVS, thanks for watching.
