The Daily Telegraph follows up it coverage of the Coronation Invitation with a piece today about the image of the Green Man, which is featured on the border of the card.
I had not realised ( because it had not occurred to me to ask ) that the concept of the “Green Man” as such only dates from 1939, and that he is a synthesis or consolidation of a whole series of images reduced to one in the aftermath of Sir James Frazer and The Golden Bough, which had been published in 1922. In that respect it is rather like Robert Graves’ 1948 book The White Goddess.
That said it is undeniable that foliated heads were common in medieval and earlier decoration, even if we do not know the reason. They may have a common source, they might have connotations of fertility or of the underlying life force of nature, or they might be an oft-repeated joke. Many medieval churches have examples of this foliated face peering out upon the world, maybe mischievously, and not malevolently. I recall being in Gloucester Cathedral and realising that virtually all the bosses in a western bay of the north aisle of the nave sported the “Green Man”.
So although his modern date of birth as an object of scholarly discussion might indeed be seen to be 1939 his antecedents and manifestations in decoration are centuries old, and geographically widespread. He is an archetype, a shared image, but historically without a single identity or mythology.
The Daily Telegraph article can be seen at How the ‘Green Man’ went from folklore to the King’s Coronation
Wikipedia has a well illustrated account at Green Man and also has an introduction to Graves’ book at The White Goddess
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