Tongue-poker faces were originally copied from classical Gorgon masks, which were supposed to ward off evil. It is not certain whether medieval people thought of them in the same way; they have been called 'hanged men', but they are clearly alive. At Bampton Church, in Oxfordshire, the tongue-poker wears a king's crown - perhaps as a political satire.
People must have felt the same in the Middle Ages, because Green Men are often tucked away in secret places. Those on roof bosses are hardly distinguishable when viewed from the floor below, and if they are carved on misericords, these have to be tilted up for them to be seen at all. Of course, there are some obvious Green Men to be found beside church doors and on chancel screens. No doubt there were once many more, before restorers started tidying up all the odd features of old churches. It would be a mistake to think of carvings like this as the work of some underground movement of mystics or pagans. All church sculpture, pious or grotesque, was commissioned by good Christians.
Even so, it is not easy to give the Green Man an allegorical Christian interpretation. All churchgoers knew that a carving of a mermaid stood for Lust and one of a pelican for Compassion, because these interpretations were in the books, but the Green Man is much more a creature of imagination – of transformation. Looking at the best foliate heads, you can see that the sculptors have studied the muscles of the face very carefully, exaggerating folds of real skin until they turn into the veins of leaves. Anyone who could read was familiar with transformation stories from the classics, such as Daphne turning into a laurel tree, for they appeared in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. This was a school textbook, in which you could read commentaries which spelt out a Christian moral for these pagan stories.
The masons at Ely Cathedral, in Cambridgeshire, had a particular interest in the idea of a face hidden – perhaps with sinister intent – behind the leaves. They must have had a head for heights, for the carving was done on location, 20 metres (70 feet) up. At this shadowy height (Gothic cathedrals are often said to resemble sacred groves) it is not at all clear which ones are foliage and which are animated.
The 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.
Jeremy Harte, The Green Man, © Jarrold Publishing, 2001 – All Rights Reserved
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