Church Rebuild Fundraising
July 12, 2006The Green Man fund raising operation has been a success and we have a few examples of the lovely, detailed casts of the Peyton Green man left.
We would be very happy to let anyone interested in possessing such a unique item - and one so full of historical and mythical interest - have one of these at a much reduced price.
With the Green Man comes the full story of its carving and discovery, and a booklet full of the ‘history & mystery’ of Green Men world wide.
A beautiful & beguiling image, but the assumption that the ‘green man’ is somehow ‘pagan’ is as erroneous (and widespread) as the belief that the nursery rhyme ‘Ring-a-Roses’ concerns the symptoms of the Black Death. It was only as recently as 1939 that such carvings were first called after the ‘Green Man’ of folk lore (Jack-in-the-Green, Bury Man etc.) all of whom can be dated to origins within the last 300 years - and there are no clear ‘pagan’ or pre-christian precedents! So definitely a case of mistaken identity that has gotten out of hand rather. Me-thinks the time has come to place him firmly in the context of Pre-Reformation Medieval Catholicism which is his natural (and indeed only) habitat.