{"id":13304,"date":"2023-04-06T10:25:37","date_gmt":"2023-04-06T16:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13304"},"modified":"2023-04-07T08:28:41","modified_gmt":"2023-04-07T14:28:41","slug":"green-man-image-starts-pagan-king-chatter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13304","title":{"rendered":"Green Man Image Starts ‘Pagan King’ Chatter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Enormous preparations, both pragmatic and ceremonial, are under way for the crowning of King Charles III and Queen Camilla next month in London. When the official invitation was prepared, people’s attention was drawn to the foliate head, the “Green Man” at the bottom.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Was it a sign to those who know<\/em> of the king’s Pagan sympathies? Was it just a sort of “spirit of Britain” thing? After all, those could be Scottish thistles to him, and what about those old-fashioned red\/white roses? And the oak leaves?<\/p>\n

The Guardian<\/em>, not a reliable source of religion news, burbled, “Is Charles planning a pumpimg pagan [sic<\/em>] party?<\/a>”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Here is a historian’s view (no, not Ronald Hutton this time), but Francis Young, author of the newly released Twilight of the Godlings: The Shadowy Beginnings of Britain’s Supernatural Beings<\/em> <\/a>from Cambridge University Press.<\/p>\n

Young has an article in The Spectator<\/em> (UK) on the Green Man and the king<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The Green Man is an intriguing figure. He is not, as many claim, an ancient fertility god, but something much stranger: a twentieth-century creation, a deity invented in modern Britain. In 1939 the folklorist Lady Raglan published an influential article which drew together several disparate strands to construct an imagined character whom all written sources , strangely, had previously failed to mention. According to Lady Raglan, the foliate heads often found in medieval churches portrayed a figure who was commemorated by pubs named \u2018The Green Man\u2019 and the dancer bedecked with foliage (known as \u2018Jack-in-the-Green\u2019) who was part of May Day festivities. Hiding in plain sight in churches, the Green Man embodied ongoing pagan [sic]<\/em> sympathies.<\/p>\n

Many historians and folklorists have debunked Lady Raglan\u2019s claims. There were no pagans in high medieval Britain, stonemasons often indulged in bizarre visual jokes or favoured a particular motif for no apparent reason, and a \u2018green man\u2019 in early modern England just meant a man who dressed in green. But the debunking didn\u2019t work; people had already come to believe that a god called the Green Man existed. A brisk trade in clay and resin replicas of foliate heads in Britain\u2019s churches helped. No one was worshipping the Green Man at this point, but the notion that a deity cheekily lurked in churches tickled mid-century Britons\u2019 desire for a little light-hearted subversion at a time when the Church was losing its grip on national life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But I have one of those resin heads hung by my front door (a sign to those who know<\/em>), and it means something more to me.<\/p>\n

ADDED: Sebastian Milbank, editor of the British “contrarian conservative” magazine The Critic<\/em>, offers a Christian genealogy of the Green Man: “The Green Man is a Christian Symbol<\/a>.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Enormous preparations, both pragmatic and ceremonial, are under way for the crowning of King Charles III and Queen Camilla next month in London. When the official invitation was prepared, people’s attention was drawn to the foliate head, the “Green Man” at the bottom. Was it a sign to those who know of the king’s Pagan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[88,441,440,5],"class_list":["post-13304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-britain","tag-charles-iii","tag-green-man","tag-paganism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-3sA","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13362,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13362","url_meta":{"origin":13304,"position":0},"title":"Yet It’s Not October: Paganism in the News (Part 1)","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 5, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"I have been seeing a flush of Pagan-related articles in Anglosphere news media lately, so many that it feels like October, which is usually the only time we are noticed.((Possibly with a smaller peak around Yule.)) One reason may be upcoming coronation of King Charles III.((I might as well say\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Britain\"","block_context":{"text":"Britain","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=britain"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/critic-cover.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4562,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4562","url_meta":{"origin":13304,"position":1},"title":"Giant Green Goddess","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 29, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Northumberlandia is the name of a new sculpture made at the site of a former open-pit coal mine in northern England. The work is described as \"goddess-like,\" but please, not Pagan: There was no intention to make a Pagan figure or mimic any ancient fertility symbols, despite her breasts which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.telegraph.co.uk\/multimedia\/archive\/02322\/Northumberlandia-1_2322661b.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.telegraph.co.uk\/multimedia\/archive\/02322\/Northumberlandia-1_2322661b.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.telegraph.co.uk\/multimedia\/archive\/02322\/Northumberlandia-1_2322661b.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10622,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10622","url_meta":{"origin":13304,"position":2},"title":"Quick Review: “The Pagan King”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 15, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"My \"Pagan-ish\" blog tag seems mostly to go to Latvian materials, and here is another one, The Pagan King. Set in the 13th century, when the Baltic peoples were to be the last Europeans Christianized at sword's point, it is the story of a young man named king of Semigallia,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Latvia\"","block_context":{"text":"Latvia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=latvia"},"img":{"alt_text":"Medieval Pagan Latvians","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/medieval-latvians.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/medieval-latvians.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/medieval-latvians.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/medieval-latvians.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":13427,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13427","url_meta":{"origin":13304,"position":3},"title":"Ronald Hutton’s Gresham Lectures Available Online","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 19, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"The five lectures that Ronald Hutton gave this past spring in the Gresham College series Finding Britain's Lost Gods are available for viewing online. Each lasts about an hour. Gods of Prehistoric Britain Paganism in Roman Britain Anglo-Saxon Pagan Gods Viking Pagan Gods in Britain Finding Lost Gods in Wales\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Britain\"","block_context":{"text":"Britain","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=britain"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/hutton-anglo-saxon-1024x582.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/hutton-anglo-saxon-1024x582.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/hutton-anglo-saxon-1024x582.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":146,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=146","url_meta":{"origin":13304,"position":4},"title":"'A hint of paganism' Sydney\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 19, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"'A hint of paganism' Sydney Carter, who wrote the hymn \"Lord of the Dance\" to a tune (\"'Tis a Gift to be Simple\") originally created by the Shakers, a movement of 19th-century American religious communalists, has died. Says the Daily Telegraph in Britain, \"But the optimistic lines \"I danced in\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5276,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5276","url_meta":{"origin":13304,"position":5},"title":"The Green Man: A Symbol of Ethnic Resistance?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 27, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Green man masks are a staple seller on Merchants' Row at any Pagan festival. I found a weather-resistant example at Beltania a couple of years ago, and now it hangs by the front door. As Paul Kingsnorth writes in Aeon: There are plenty of hypotheses [about his origin], and it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cdn-imgs.aeonmagazine.com\/images\/2012\/10\/The-Green-Man-Norwich.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13304"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13323,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13304\/revisions\/13323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}