Sandars, p. 283, "the 'Green Man' peering through hawthorn leaves in the Norwich cloisters and at Southwell is the true descendant of the Brno-Maloměřice heads" (famous bronze Celtic pieces) According to Stephen Miller, author of "The Green Man in Medieval England: Christian Shoots from Pagan Roots" (2022) [14] "it is a Christian/Judaic-derived motif relating to the legends and medieval hagiographies of the Quest of Seth – the three twigs/seeds/kernels planted below the tongue of post-fall Adam by his son Seth (provided by the angel of mercy responsible for guarding Eden) shoot forth, bringing new life to humankind". [15] In the final years of the 20th century and earliest of the 21st, the appearance of the Green Man proliferated in children's literature. [8] Examples of such novels in which the Green Man is a central character are Bel Mooney's 1997 works The Green Man and Joining the Rainbow, Jane Gardam's 1998 The Green Man, and Geraldine McCaughrean's 1998 The Stones are Hatching. [8] Within many of these depictions, the Green Man figure absorbs and supplants a variety of other wild men and gods, in particular those which are associated with a seasonal death and rebirth. [8] The Rotherweird Trilogy by Andrew Caldecott draws heavily on the concept of the Green Man, embodied by the gardener Hayman Salt who is transformed into the Green Man at the climax of the first book. The tradition of the Green Man carved onto Christian churches is found across Europe, including examples such as the Seven Green Men of Nicosia carved into the facade of the thirteenth century St Nicholas Church in Cyprus.

Perhaps the importance of ancient treescapes in our history accounts for their depiction in the places of worship. As many have previously stated there are strong links between the origins of Robin Hood and the Green Man, who is also the ancient Egyptian god Osiris and the Greek-Roman god Dionysus/Bacchus, and so we should hope to find something of interest in the many stories surrounding this enigmatic character. Later foliate heads in churches may have reflected the legends around Seth, the son of Adam, according to which he plants seeds in his dead father's mouth as he lies in his grave. The tree that grew from them became the tree of the true cross of the crucifixion. This tale was in The Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine, a very popular thirteenth century compilation of Christian religious stories, from which the subjects of church sermons were often taken, especially after 1483, when William Caxton printed an English translation of the Golden Legend. [13]

Harding, Mike (1998). A Little Book Of The Green Man. Aurum Press. p.38. ISBN 1-85410-561-2. Archived from the original on 2011-07-10. The deed is done by the Abbess of Kirklees, who acts as the priestess in some ancient pagan ritual. Could it be that the tales of Robin are more ancient than previously believed? Could they really be tales of ancient Egypt and even Sumeria? Passed down over millennia and altered by time? During the post-war era literary scholars interpreted the Green Knight as being a literary representation of Lady Raglan's Green Man as described in her article "The Green Man in Church Architecture", published in Folklore journal of March 1939. This association ultimately helped consolidate the belief that the Green Man was a genuine, Medieval folkloric, figure. [7] Raglan's idea that the Green Man is a mythological figure has been described as "bunk", with other folklorists arguing that it is simply an architectural motif. [3]

Green Man" type foliate heads first appeared in England during the early 12th century deriving from those of France, and were especially popular in the Gothic architecture of the 13th to 15th centuries. The idea that the Green Man motif represents a pagan mythological figure, as proposed by Lady Raglan in 1939, despite its popularity with the lay public, is not supported by evidence. [1] [3] [4] Types [ edit ] 6th-century Byzantine mosaic in the Great Palace Mosaic Museum, Istanbul.

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Anderson, William. Green Man: The Archetype of our Oneness with the Earth, HarperCollins (1990) ISBN 0-00-599252-4 a b c Livingstone, Josephine (2016-03-07). "The Remarkable Persistence of the Green Man". The New Yorker . Retrieved 2023-05-07. Livingstone, Josephine (2016-03-07). "The Remarkable Persistence of the Green Man". The New Yorker . Retrieved 2023-05-07.

He is also green like the ‘Green Man,’ which is the special healing color attributed to many things surrounding the serpent cult — such as the Emerald Tablet, the color of initiation into Gnostic mysteries associated with the Masons, and the Green Glass of the Grail.He is also green like the ‘Green Man,’ which is the special healing color attributed to many things surrounding the serpent cult — such as the Emerald Tablet, the color of initiation into Gnostic mysteries The Green Man is an integral character in Max Porter's novel Lanny, which was longlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize. The Green Men (including a suffragist irritated by the name) and their powers figure significantly in K. J. Charles's novel The Spectred Isle (2017), which was nominated for a RITA Award. [9]