The Green Man in Britain. - book review

By Fran Doel and Geoff Doel. Stroud: Tempus, 2001.162 pp. Illus. 12.99 [pounds sterling] (pbk). ISBN 0-7524-1916-1

To paraphrase the Doels, they have written this book in order to provide a history of the development of the term and concept of the Green Man and what it has come to signify today. They wished to investigate the carvings of foliate heads in ecclesiastical architecture and to present information on what they perceive to be the wider cultural associations present in literature, folk customs and legends. Their book contains a large collection of photographs of carvings and a smaller number of folk customs that they associate with the Green Man. Also included is a selective gazetteer of ecclesiastical sites that are home to carvings of Green Men.

The book is organised roughly chronologically, starting with the medieval Green Man and his appearance in Christian iconography. They move on to cover other topics such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Robin Hood, Jack in the Green, the Burry Man and the Green Man as a theme in twentieth-century art and literature.

In the first chapter, Doel and Doel define the Green Man as "a head disgorging vegetation from eyes, nostrils, ears or forehead, or a foliate head where the cheeks are depicted as leaf-like" (p. 18). This image of a verdant head is primarily found in church architecture in the British Isles, carved in both wood and stone. The Doels include information on folk customs and symbolic figures they consider to be related to the idea of the Green Man, and even a discussion of the religious and cultural significance of the colour green itself. They admit the difficulty in reconciling the presence of Green Men in church architecture with their absence in scripture. The theories presented range from the idea that that the foliate heads represent mankind itself, or perhaps were part of some complex medieval symbolism based on the close identity of Christ and the Sacred Tree, to the Frazerian proposal that they are the remnants of pre-Christian belief.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was written at roughly the same time as many of the foliate heads appeared in churches. The Doels seem to have read this poem through the lens of twentieth-century cultural concepts, preferring to devise their own interpretation of what it meant than looking carefully at the research that has been done in this field. They cite the occurrence of combat between heroes and death and resurrection as precursors of mummers' plays, but do not give any proof to substantiate this statement. It is their reliance on conjectural statements based on outward similarities that mars the book as a whole.

Within a few chapters, the Doels begin a gradual move away from the narrow definition of the Green Man given at the outset. Subsequent chapters include celebrations involving greenery: Maypoles, May garlands and the Jack in the Green, for instance. Informative descriptions of some of these customs find their way into the text, sometimes with photographs. They write from personal experience about the Castleton Garland celebration, give details on how the garland is made, and they explain why the "Lady" in this case is female (instead of a man in women's clothes). It seems the Castleton residents had trouble finding men who could ride side-saddle. Modern revivals of older customs, such as the early May Bank Holiday festivals at Hastings and Rochester, are also mentioned as part of the continuity of the Green Man in British culture.

A puzzling inclusion, however, is the chapter on the Burry Man of South Queensferry, Scotland. Unlike the other customs, this one takes place in August, rather than May. Instead of wearing leaves and flowers, the Burry Man is covered head to toe (including his face) in dried burrs. Although the authors go into the details of how the man is dressed, and his procession around the town, it is difficult to see how this relates to the foliate heads in the first chapter. For one thing, he is not even green. If the Burry Man is an incarnation of a Green Man, why not the Straw Bear from Whittlesea? There, a man in an equally cumbersome, if not as painful, costume (also created from plant material) is paraded around the town. While their interest in the custom is genuine, their attempt to call the Burry Man a Green Man seems to be stretching the point a bit.

The penultimate chapter brings together references to the Green Man in twentieth-century literature, art and music (opera). It is an interesting survey, and shows how creative people still continue to mine myths, legends and traditional culture for material.

A highlight of the book is the numerous black and white photographs of Green Man carvings. These illustrate the astounding level of diversity of interpretation of the simple concept of a foliate head, but they are only rarely tied in with the text. Sadly, the authors have not presented any analysis of the pictorial data to show if there are any temporal or geographical trends in the iconography of the Green Man. A reader interested in this aspect would at least have the gazetteer to fall back on as a reference. Unfortunately, they did not cross-reference the photographs with the gazetteer.