If you’ve read anything about paganism, you’ve probably heard of a figure known as the “Green Man.” This is a name that is commonly applied to an artistic motif that often appears in decorative carvings in churches in western Europe, depicting a male face surrounded by leaves and foliage. In many depictions, the man is shown with his mouth open, disgorging foliage from it.
In modern popular culture, the Green Man is widely portrayed as an extremely ancient and extremely powerful “pagan” nature deity who was supposedly of immense importance to pre-Christian cultures throughout Europe and the Middle East. In reality, the Green Man is nothing of the sort and the whole notion of him as any kind of deity is actually less than a century old.
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