The Green Man Myth
Green Man " Jack-in-the-Green he will ripen our wheat..." From the dawn of agriculture comes
the ancient Green God, the Vegetation Spirit who dies in the Fall and returns in the Spring.
The Face in the Leaves
On the continent he has been seen and noted in
Germany, France, Italy, Holland and is said to be
found in Spain, Hungary and Poland. India and
Malaysia have their own Green Man and though he
doesn't seem to appear in Native American
traditions he can be seen in his modern role as a
bringer of fortune on the walls of banks in New York
and Chicago.
His roots may go back to the shadow hunters who
painted the caves of Lascaux and Altimira and may
climb through history, in one of his manifestations
through Robin Hood and the Morris Dances of Old
England to be chiselled in wood and stone even to
this day by men and women who no longer know his
story but sense that something old and strong and
tremendously important lies behind his leafy mask.
One of the earliest English epic poems Gawain and
The Green Knight may refer to yet another
manifestation of the Green Man as the God that dies
and is reborn. He is the Green Man, Jack in the
Green, the Old Man of the Woods, Green George and
many other things to many other men but one
common theme runs through all the disparate images
and myths, death and rebirth and the Green that is
all life.
