BBC - Bradford and West Yorkshire - Paganism in West Yorkshire

Interestingly enough, the Greenman festivals (or Jack in the Green, as they are known) are still flourishing today. Between March (Ostara or Easter time) and May (Beltane) these street parties and processions can be found all over England. Only last week in Sowerby Bridge I came across the Greenman in the midst of a Morris dance for the Pace Egg Plays. I caught him again in Settle a week later and was overjoyed to see him still prancing around and being celebrated.

The Greenman also represents male sexuality and these springtime festivals focus the 'sap rising' and the men-folk getting merry and frisky as the Sun begins to warm their blood. The Jack In The Green parties in southern England also play upon this theme with huge celebrations through the streets and in May, incorporate the phallic maypole into the mix.

I have recently even seen an old carving of the Greenman in Hebden Bridge, above the very shop which had just started to sell carvings and sculptures of it! It is very nice to see that a new generation of craftspeople, performers and artists are continuing the ancient traditions by reinterpreting this figure. It seems we cannot let it go, and possibly that is an ancient voice telling us we should not.

"The Greenman also represents male sexuality."

Personally I feel there is more to the tree than we know. I know it is a cliché, but I do occasionally hug special trees and often sit beneath them pondering life. They calm me down. But I have also observed, in my capacity as an inquisitive Wiz, some interesting things along my travels. One very special tree I once 'knew' actually demonstrated some kind of intelligence!

OK, ok, stop giggling back there. Seriously, this particular tree was vast, but not just in height, it sprawled out over the ground, its branches or 'limbs' dipping down and back up again like elbows and knobbly knees. I didn't really think much of it until I ventured round the back of the tree (most trees don't have fronts and backs, of course) and then I stopped and stared! At some point, possibly hundreds of years before, this tree had been struck by lightning. Almost half of it was rotted away. Could something deep within this living thing have been aware of that strike and 'instructed' the branches to grow down to support it? Is that possible? I was stunned to think that this massive creature had a sense of survival, not just a need to grow but also the ability to keep itself upright at all costs. Wow!

It was from then on my attitude towards trees changed. And I no longer feel embarrassed telling people I know trees because I have seen the evidence of their strange intelligence with my own eyes now.

It is more than likely, due to the popularity of the Greenman throughout history, that others have also learned these things. Lightning trees (remember Follyfoot) have popped up in songs and folktales for a long time as being special in some magical way.

I hope the Greenman continues to feature in our world and that new artists follow the age-old tradition of painting and modelling them. I think any form of life which has only one ambition, to grow outward ever-closer to that big lovely warm thing in the sky in order to let off oxygen for us all to breathe, deserves all the praise it can get. Long live the Greenman.

There is a society of the Greenman which has a database of all of the surviving sculptures and carvings in the country. If you come across any, do give them the location. There are many which have not yet been catalogued.

John the Wiz

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