"Every man marvelled mightly what it should mean
That a man and his horse should be such colour green."
____ "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", anon. Irish poem, (trans CM)
Throughout northern and western Britain, this day is the focus of many May-time customs. These customs, banned by Parliament under the Commonwealth in the seventeenth century, were reinstated at the Restoration of the monarchy, when King Charles II made his triumphal entry into London. Known thereafter as Oak Apple Day, it is celebrated in Britain by the wearing of springs of green oak leaves.
An earlier veneration was restimulated by an incident that befall Charles II when he was but a prince. Fleeing from the parliamentarian soldiers, Charles was forced to hide in an oak tree. But the face peering out from the green leaves, originally in the primeval forest but now also in contemporary May-time celebrations, is a much earlier one: that of the Green Man.
The Evergreen God is one of the earliest deities. He is represented in many summertime customs by mummers and disguisers who wear garlands of leaves and flowers or cover their bodies in greenery to ceremonially show the Green Man to the people. He comes out of the primal, all-encompassing forest that once covered the earth, dynamic and vigorous, with pulsing sap of summer in his veins.
The Green Man is the irrepressible wildness of the world of vegetation. He bides in the stillness of the deep forest or dances in the sun filled arcs of leaf-green light that filter through the branches of the tree canopy. His name is delight, and his meaning mysterious - a potent sexual force that invigorates the earth at this time. As the Evergreen God, he is likewise potent in the wintertime when he plays a riddling game at the thresholds of the year with such daring ones as Sir Gawain.
"Ask your spiritual allies to take you to meed the Green Man in meditation or soul-flight."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]
Sir Gawain isn't actually an Irish poem, it's an English one. But us Irish like to claim everything so I'm happy with the creditation :)
ReplyDeleteI actually rememeber it best from uni when we studied Tolkien's own PhD translation of it- I reckon it has a lot to answer for! At the end of the day I don't think it really matters where it came from, it's all wonderful and inspiring. I love when writers take these things and work them into their own endevours. Have you ever read The Wheel of Time saga by Robert Jordan? The end of the very first book in the series has the most emotive and beautiful rendition of the Green Man I've ever come across in I suppose what you could call a retelling. It is a fictional story after all. But do read it, you'll see what I mean (and I challenge you not to fall in love with those books).
p.s sorry for leaving so long a comment, maybe I should just comment more often and then when I do I wouldn't ramble so much :)
May 29th is celebrated as Garland Day in Castleton, a Derbyshire village near here. A huge garland of wildflowers is created and the 'Garland King and Queen' parade around the village on horseback wearing 17th century dress, the Queen wearing a smaller garland. The King's garland is on a wooden 'cage' and covers him completely, it's eventually hung from the Church tower and is supposedly in celebration of the Restoration but it's obviously much, much older than that.
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