AGG/GAG - 22 - The Green Man Issue
Created | Updated May 1, 2002
Open your mind and say, "AWW"
So to celebrate May Day, here's a very helpful link:
h2g2 Jargon by Dastardly
And if that's not enough you can always find computer jargon and abbreviations listed at
The Free Online Dictionary of Computing Abbreviations, terms, jargon - over 10,000 entries. A great helper. It's one of the last free (in the socialist - May Day - tradition) links surviving, from the good old days of dot.communism before the global giants invaded napster-land and 'sharing' became a terrorist activity.
As such, most of it has been rubbed out by johnny-come-lately religions from the Mediterranean. Sadly, the real meaning of the green man is all but lost and only remnants, mostly carvings on church walls, remain of this character.
But I get the nagging feeling he was once central to our ancestors' beliefs.
It seems the Green Man holds the key to the mystery of several earthbound realities. Our connection to the earth has been fudged by the invasive eastern religions and yet this myth still holds an un-named place in the darkest corners of our pagan minds. No one seems to know the whole story.
I suspect there is a hideously raw and awful truth in this pagan lore. But it has been hidden from our modern viewpoint and civilised sensibilities, in much the same way that barnyard murder is now done in an industrial slaughterhouse and called 'meat processing'.
I was never be able to come to grips with this huge subject. Tearing the mask off the Jolly Green Giant was more than my faint heart and small brain could handle.
This complex, mysterious and powerful legend continues to elude me; the truth is beyond my grasp.
The resources below represent the best I found online and they will tell you more than I can,
but even these are fragmentary and leave much to conjecture and your imagination.
If you're in the mood for a good think, about Spring, Life, the Universe, etc.,
there's loads of speculation in these links.
There's lots of pictures too! More than you can shake a stick at.
The Green Man by Silas Eybin
Here is the first h2g2 Entry I found on the subject. Concise, brief and yet hinting at the frustration that would follow as I searched for more definitive souces. You will notice that the conversation thread off this article scratches at the surface of the deeper green man mystery.
Green Man Conversation from the British English thread Post 4092 etc
When the subject came up in the British English thread there were a half dozen responses which I pasted together as the link above. Here again we find a sense of uncertainty about origins and meanings, even a suggestion that similar pagan gods existed in Greek and Roman cultures, but most significantly there is a definite contemporary awareness that this green guy is important to British culture even if we've forgotten why.
Nature/Spring/The Green Man from the BBC website.
New Age awareness of environmental issues and nature based spirituality inspires this BBC website reference. Again, hinting at the mystery, it offers an audio link (Realplayer) to a half hour NHU Radio programme originally broadcast in 1998.
A very interesting programme even if it needlessly wanders too far into Eastern 'fertility gods' which have little to do with the Green Man, who is really more primitive, more akin to the 'trickster' of North American aboriginal tales. He is far more 'nature based' and less 'agricultural' than the eastern gods.
Mike Harding's Search for the Green Man
Here is a man obsessed with solving 'the mystery' of the little green men. Researching for more than 20 years he has built up a most comprehensive site and published a book on the subject.
Thanks to Zarquon's Singing Fish for this link to Mike's web page. You'll find a dozen link bars (to his recordings and other personal endeavours) but look for the one called 'green man' and follow his passionate search for answers.
It was while reading here that I realised this subject was too big a bite for me to chew and had to admit I ought to leave you in the hands of experts like Mike. He has some tunes you might enjoy as well.
The Canterbury Green Man
Here's lots of photos of little green men carved into the history of Canterbury Cathedral. And links from there to other sources.
In the classic 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight', the green man is given the role of
'Angel from God' to mete out justice on such Christian issues as Jealousy (monogamy),
Loyalty (subservance) and Honesty (property rights).
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an Edited Guide Entry by NexusSeven/Lindsay
Perhaps because of this story, the notion of green to mean envy and the association of horns on the cuckold continue in our culture today. Half truths heavily modified from pagan realities.
If you can see through the veil of this 'knightly tale' and move a few events and consequences around to a more 'pagan' standard, you might see the face of the green man up close, lurking there in the bushes.
- ~jwf~ the jolliest greeen giant
- (tonsil revenge) it ain't easy being green
- =X Subcom Deidzoeb An enigma wrapped in a British Racing Green Delorean.
- Spaceman Spiff Looking for greener Pasteurs
- Martin Skill, a lucky shamrock, and a smile.
- Sir Bossel Knows little green men when he sees them
- Hobbes Outstanding in someone's field until the green lights come on.
- Zaphod Advancing horticulture beyond its ability to comprehend.
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