Revisiting the Green Man - a mysterious image from the past

The Green Man is a face that can be seen in many old churches and stately homes throughout northern Europe. The face has several basic forms, but is either made up of leaves, is sprouting leaves from eyes, ears and/or mouth or is sometimes simply a face peering out through vegetation, like these ones at St Mary Redcliffe in Bristol:

Mike Harding, in his Little book of the Green Man, points out that the name 'Green Man' was probably first used by Lady Raglan in 1939. We don't know what the medieval carvers who produced some of the finest examples would have called these faces.

We don't really know what they mean either, but the images are so powerful that they have persisted through time. They even, in many cases, escaped the stupid vandalism done to British church art by the Puritans.

In The Hidden World of Misericords, Dorothy and Henry Kraus suggest 'That so much underseat carving should have survived Protestant iconoclasm was no doubt due in large measure to the prevailingly secular subject matter'. These foliate faces are not obviously portraying Christian religious ideas either, which may be the reason that we can still appreciate so many of them today whether carved as misericords, roof bosses or elsewhere.

Hayman, in 'Church Misericords and Bench Ends' says that green men have 'often been misinterpreted as an indigenous pagan deity or as a spirit of nature. In fact green men represent sin and mortality.'

The Green Man also seems to hold a special fascination for carvers. In Understanding Woodcarving, John Foyle comments 'You may think we have enough of that fraternity around already. And, yes, the woodcarving world is certainly not short of pre-Christian sylvan dieties, or foliate men as they are sometimes called'. But the design is so strange and its origins so mysterious that carvers keep returning to it. In The Green Man: The Pitkin Guide, Jeremy Harte says that 'The Green Man was always a carver's device, whether in wood or stone. It is rare to find him in jewellery, illuminated books or stained glass'. Master carver Chris Pye, for one, has spoken of his fascination with the subject.

Similar faces can be seen carved on temples in India and there are even green cats, lions and snakes. In St John's chapel in St Mary Redcliffe church in Bristol, there is an animal sprouting leaves from its mouth hidden amongst the medieval roof bosses.

Image from http://stmaryredcliffe.co.uk/files/2014/08/St-Mary-Redcliffe-NW-tower-vaulting-report-revised-assembled-reduced.pdf

As with many such images, it's a bit hard to tell what kind of animal it is: Mike Harding thinks it is a dog, Jerry Sampson (in an interesting architectural report on these bosses) thinks it is more like a cow. Here is a more recent green dog carved on the end of a pew in St Newlyn's church in Cornwall:

Many Green Man faces are quite obviously men, with beards etc. but I haven't heard of many carvings of a Green Woman. Jeremy Harte also makes this point; 

'The real Green Lady, with foliage sprouting from her face or mouth, is hardly ever seen (although there is one at Sampford Courtenay church in Devon). At Kings Nympton church, also in Devon, there is a series of heads: all the male ones are Green Men, but none of the female heads are Green Ladies.'  

I wonder why?

Recently, I've been reworking a green man face carved in oak for 'Mayfest' in Bristol. It was okay, but didn't look exactly how I wanted it to, so I decided to recarve the eyes, nose and mouth. It was an interesting challenge, carving some fairly deep detail into an oak board only 10mm (²⁵/₆₄ inch) thick without going through. Here's how the face now looks:

This green man's face was carved on-and-off over four years from 1998 to 2002. It is not made from wood, but instead from meerschaum, a kind of stone which is prized for use in making pipe bowls. The carving isn't finished, as it still needs to have finishing wax applied. I'd also like to carve a stem for it, probably from cherry wood.

My own favourite Green Man is one that can be found in Bamberg cathedral in Bavaria. It is possibly one of the most well-known Green Man designs and dates to around the mid-thirteenth century. Some friends have commented that they think that the face is scary and it certainly has something quite powerful about it. As Jeremy Harte says, 'often the most beautiful ones are the most sinister.'

Image from: http://www.gargoylesandgrotesques.com/index.php?p=1_6_Photos

Some of my favourite projects

I thought that, since quite a few people may just visit my blog and not my website, I'd put a few images on this blog of some of the pieces that I've made. It certainly isn't an exhaustive list, as the number of carvings done since 1994 (when I really got into carving properly) is well into the hundreds by now. These are not all of my favourite pieces either, just some of the ones that have sprung to mind - often because of very personal reasons such as the time and place where they were made .  I hope you enjoy seeing them!

If you would like to have a look at the website and see more of my work, just click on this link to go there: Website  

These are two views of the first carving that I made as an adult , which was the start of all of this. It is a walking stick which was carved in Ironbridge, Shropshire in 1994.The timber is hazel, from the woods in nearby Benthall Edge. The stick is carved most of the way down and took two months to make. It came in very useful when scrambling around on the steep slopes surrounding Ironbridge Gorge. The knife used was a number 10 Opinel knife. I still use the same knife to this day.

This little sleeping gryphon was carved from rose gum picked up in Australia in 1998. The wood was hard to carve and he turned out well. For those unfamiliar with 5 pence coins, they are 11 sixteenths of an inch (18 mm) in diameter. 

Most of my early carvings were small, as I spent a lot of time travelling and living out of a backpack. There are also limits to the size and type of carving that can be produced using only a lock knife and sandpaper.

This flower was carved in 1998,whilst staying at Onekaka, in the South Island of New Zealand. The wood is a shard of walnut from a broken shotgun butt. The blue crystal is kyanite, which I found in a nearby stream. The whole piece is about 8 inches (20 cm) long.



This pipe bowl, representing the green man, is carved from a special kind of stone called meerschaum. It was carved on and off over a period of several years from 1997 to about 2002. Hidden in the foliage are birds and fruit.

These are actually tools to eat wild cactus fruit,which were plentiful around the caves that I was living in at the time in the Canary Islands of Tenerife and La Gomera in the year 2000. They are carved from brezo, the timber of the tree heather which is also used to make briar pipes.

The pronged tool, representing a cactus flower, is pushed into the fruit and then used like a handle to pull the fruit off the spiny plant. The spatula-like tool is then used to slice open the skin of the fruit and remove it. Any tufts of troublesome spines remaining on the fruit could be scooped out using the small gouge on the spatula. The fruit was then de-spined and ready to eat.

    

This carving was made on the 1st January 2000 on the beach at San Pedro in Andalucia, Spain. The wood is azinho (holm oak) from Portugal and the stone is calcite from the valley, rubbed down with an old whetstone. The tangled shape of the carving could refer to my uncertainty about what the coming year would bring, or the state of my head after a very big party the night before!

This was the first stonecarving that I ever produced in 2001. I still like it, even though it must be admitted that some of the facial proportions aren't perfect. The face seems to take on different moods depending on the lighting on it.

This carving, which I call 'Power slug', was made in 2002 from a variety of woods. The theme was to be continued a few years later in the 'metainsecta' series (see below).

The bowl shown above, like most of my work, was made from found wood, in this case from Fernworthy Forest on Dartmoor in Devon. The textured and smooth surfaces are wonderful to touch. When carving it in 2004, I was studying the work of the artist Richard Long, who can condense the tale of a walk of a thousand miles into a picture of a spiral which traces the path. The text carved onto the bowl tells a little about where the wood came from, so hopefully beginning the process of holding tales which the bowl was made for.

This 'scorpion fly' was carved in, I think, 2005. It is about 3 inches (7.5 cm) long. I have made a whole series of these carved critters and you can find out more about them by clicking on these links... Mechanical insects and More mechanical insects.  

In August 2008, I curated a group exhibition called 'Metainsecta' in Bristol. The scorpion fly was one piece exhibited. The show was a great success and led to two more 'Meta' themed shows, as well as the chance to exhibit some pieces in Bristol museum's Natural History section.

The piece shown below, called 'Velocivenator satiei', was shown in the second of these 'Meta' shows. To find out about the odd places that I picked up some of the timbers used and the meaning behind that strange name, click on this link:   V. satiei

In January 2009, I was offered a commission to repair an ebony sculpture by the late Zambian sculptor, Friday Tembo. The piece had been accidentally knocked from a mantelpiece and had broken into several fragments. The sculptor was a personal friend of the owners. Friday Tembo was one of Zambia's top sculptors, who exhibited internationally and had given them the carving himself. It therefore had great sentimental value to them, particularly as he had since passed away.
It was a real privilege to be given the opportunity to repair and restore this beautiful and interesting work. It represents a shaman in the process of         transforming between a man and a fish form.

Also in 2009 came the opportunity to make this 9 feet (275 cm) long oak bench, which was commissioned by the National Trust and is installed on Stokeleigh Camp iron age hill fort in Leigh Woods, Bristol. It was a fascinating project to work on and  the bench is carved all over with information about the rare wildlife and long history of the surroundng area. More information can be found by clicking here

..and in the same year, I carved this owl as part of a privately commissioned sculpture. I like what I see as his slightly disgruntled expression.

The 'gramophone weevil' was made in 2010, entirely from timbers collected at Westonbirt Arboretum in Gloucestershire. Even the 'vinyl' is actually dust from charcoal burning there, cast as a 12" in resin. More information about this sculpture can be found by clicking on this link

A commission in 2010 saw me carving in Leigh Woods again, putting a memorial inscription onto a bench. One of the highlights was when the two young sons of the person being commemorated came to visit and had the opportunity to help carve some of the lettering themselves.

A commission in 2011 gave me the chance to carve the handle of a knife similar to my own Opinel. I had always wanted to try it, but never got round to it. The carving was done with my own number 10 Opinel, which you can see next to the carved one in the lower picture.

Also in 2011, I was commissioned to make a shop sign from solid oak. The design was worked out through discussion with the client and the finished sign measures 3 feet by 3 feet (90 cm by 90 cm). The project was a joinery one, a little different from my usual line of work, but I was very happy with the result:

And finally, I have to include working at the Boiling Wells site for St Werburghs City Farm in Bristol. Since 2009, this role has covered all kinds of things, from running green woodworking courses to renovating hazel coppice to working with young people who are out of education. It has been a chance to meet some incredible people and to work in one of the most beautiful secret places in the city.