The Green Man: Reflections, Poems, and Songs

Well, here on the eighth day since Earth Day, I give to you my final post. Rather than share yet another poem, I’m sharing a series of posts I’ve written over the years about the Green Man. These originally appeared on my blog at Patheos Catholic, Letters from the Edge of Elfland. It might, perhaps, be better to spread these out and even to further edit them. I, however, will be sharing them all together here. So, read at your leisure and learn a bit about the Green Man along the way.

David Russell Mosley
Advent Immaculate Conception 2017
The Edge of Elfland
Manchester, New Hampshire

Dearest Readers,

A few days ago Michael Martin wrote a wonderful post about the Green Man, the land, and Catholicism. I absolutely loved it and strongly recommend it to you. One of the chief points Martin makes is that we need to be reconnected to the land, that this is a theological, a spiritual, as well as a moral good. Martin looks to a particular quotation from G.K. Chesterton to help make his point about what our relationship to land should like and mean. Martin writes:

”In considering the sterile benefits of modernity at the beginning of the twentieth century, G.K. Chesterton saw the return to the land as a significant part of the return to sanity: ‘If we ever get the English back onto English land they will become again a religious people, if all goes well, a superstitious people. The absence from life of both the higher and lower forms of faith is largely due to a divorce from nature and the trees and clouds.’ We could use some healthy superstition connected to nature instead of the unhealthy superstition of virtual reality by which our humanity has become so degraded.”

Martin thinks that moments like his––of seeing green men, his daughters seeing fairies––point us to a deeper reality a truer reality. I could not agree more. Maybe, I suppose I can entertain the idea that, there are no fairies at the bottom of my garden (though David Bentley Hart would remind us that believing there are is not illogical). But even so, talking about my garden as if it were guarded and tended to by small creatures tells me something true about vegetable life, that it has life. My cucumbers, my favorite tree, my grass are all alive and a little superstition might help me treat them better.

In fact, I have made this very argument in the past when I noticed both Irish and Icelandic tendencies to recognize the needs of the Fair Folk. There may be no elves in the woods, but by believing there are it has changed how people in Iceland and Ireland interact with nature, with creation.

I suppose you might ask, can't we have this right relationship with creation without the superstition? Can't we do without fairies and elves? On the one hand, I suppose we can. But the truth is I've seen no evidence of it. But, as Martin also says, I'm not asking you to believe in fairies, but at least to remember that Creation is alive and that we are part of it, related to it. There is a reason Pope Francis' most recent encyclical called our attention St. Francis of Assisi's "Canticle of Brother Sun." The Pope too is calling on us to remember that Creation is alive and needs our care. That too, Creation is more than what habit and modern science have taught us to see.

Martin's post also seeks to contrast nature with the virtual and I suggest you read him for his argument there. For me, I want to end with his penultimate line, "Those of us who go by the name Christian would do well to not confine the numinous to Sundays, for the Lord poured out his Wisdom over all of nature (Sirach 1:9)."

Sincerely,
David

Ordinary Time
4 June 2018
The Edge of Elfland
Concord, New Hampshire

Dearest Readers,
A few years ago in the church of St. Eustace in Paris, France a stag was filmed walking around inside. This has been bouncing around my newsfeed again, lately, so I thought I would look into it. I am a little disappointed to say that it turns out the stag was not wild, but a trained deer named Chambord and he was being filmed for an art project at the church. The stag, of course, was chosen because St. Eustace saw a vision of the cross between the antlers of a stag. That this was staged and not a mere chance moment, ultimately, does not ruin or reduce this moment for me. Rather, it serves as a reminder that we have often sought to bring the outside in, to reflect creation in our houses of worship.

The ancient Israelites are the first in our direct line of descent to do this. Look at this description of the inner parts of the first temple:

He carved the walls of the house all round about with carved engravings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, in the inner and outer rooms. The floor of the house he overlaid with gold, in the inner and outer rooms.

For the entrance to the inner sanctuary he made doors of olive wood; the lintel and the doorposts were five-sided. He covered the two doors of olive wood with carvings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers; he overlaid them with gold, and spread gold on the cherubim and on the palm trees.

So also he made for the entrance to the nave doorposts of olive wood, each four-sided, and two doors of cypress wood; the two leaves of one door were folding, and the two leaves of the other door were folding. He carved cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, overlaying them with gold evenly applied upon the carved work. He built the inner court with three courses of dressed stone to one course of cedar beams.

Cherubim, palm trees, and flowers are everywhere, and it doesn't stop here. The priestly robes themselves were adorned with images from creation, and even the tabernacle before the temple had elements of nature built into it. There is something about creation itself, the true temple of the Lord, that makes us want to incorporate it into our churches. All of this reminds me of the Southwell Minster in Nottingham.

While now an Anglican minster and the cathedral for the Southwell/Nottinghamshire Diocese in the Church of England, the church's foundations go back to the seventh century. Most of the current building, however, date to the 13th century. It was during that time that many "green men" carvings were made. If you ever have a chance to walk around the minster, I encourage it, stone foliage can be seen everywhere, as if creation itself has built the church. But what is most fascinating is the inclusion of the green men. Green men are part of traditional folklore, sometimes they are giants, other times giant walking plant men, similar to but not identical with Tolkien's ents. Somehow, and for some reason, they find themselves here in the church. I don't know why the stone-masons decided to include them, but I think it has something to do with their view of reality. Not that they believed these green men existed, though they may have, but they understood nature itself to have an identity, to be personified, and to be subject to the same Lord as the rest of us.

Maximos the Confessor in his Mystagogy tells us that according to Dionysius:

”God's holy church in itself is a symbol of the sensible world as such, since it possesses the divine sanctuary as heaven and the beauty of the nave as earth. Likewise the world is a church since it possesses heaven corresponding to a sanctuary, and for a nave it has the adornment of the earth.”

The world, and by this Maximos means the cosmos, is a symbol of a church and vice versa, each is imprinted on the other. He goes on to tell us how the church and creation are both like a man and vice versa. The point being this, for those with the eyes to see there is not a hard distinction between creation, humanity, and the Church. So when the ancient Israelites depicted angels and bulls and pomegranates in the temple or on their priestly robes, and when the stonewrights working on Southwell Minster included green men, they were simply depicting a deeper reality, that these things are inextricably connected to one another, that churches are the particularities that allow us to see creation itself as the Church. What is more, it is a reminder that through the person of Christ, all of these things have been united to God since Christ united not only humanity, but all of creation to himself.

Sincerely,
David

Ordinary Time
4 June 2018
The Edge of Elfland
Concord, New Hampshire

Dearest Readers,

Recently, I have been slowly re-watching Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy II: The Golden Army. And first, let me just say what a travesty it is that del Toro will never get to film the third and final chapter of his planned Hellboy films. One of the things I love about Hellboy II is how much closer to home del Toro bring Faërie. The Troll Market, for instance, exists beneath the Brooklyn Bridge and, as it turns out, trolls and other creatures live among us, but because of a glamour we cannot see them as they really are. The whole film revolves on the idea that once there was peace between humans and the fairy-folk, but we have forgotten them and pushed them out.

One of the most heartrending scenes for me is when Prince Nuada sets an Elemental, a forest god to be precise, on an unexpecting Hellboy and citizens of New York. Hellboy fights the god all while looking after a baby, a human baby. But before he gives the final blow, he hesitates. Prince Nuada uses this opportunity to persuade Hellboy not to fight against him, but to join him. Prince Nuada tells him that if he kills the forest god there will be no more, the "world will not see its like again." Hellboy must now choose between humans and the fay-folk. Finally, Hellboy shoots it in the head and the god's blood pours out of it, turning all the buildings, cars, in short all man-made things into grass and flowers and trees. Its blood makes the inert, the inanimate, alive as it dies. As Princess Nuala told Hellboy it is both a destroyer and a bringer of life, so it brings life as it is destroyed.

The scene has always spoken to me. After all, how could Hellboy not hesitate, the forest god is not evil, it is put to evil purposes by Prince Nuada, which complicates things even more since we cannot simply say that the humans are right or that the elves and the fay-folk are. Hellboy as a demon raised by humans must walk a middle path, one laid out for him by his Catholic father who too walked this middle path. But in the war between the humans and "nature" as represented by Nuada it is precisely nature that loses, the last forest god dies because Nuada put it in harm's way.

This brings me to a recent article in Quartz, "A DISPERSED SELF: A debate over plant consciousness is forcing us to confront the limitations of the human mind." The article brings to light new research as well as old that calls into question the consciousness of plant life. There are beginning to be those who argue that plants must, in some sense, be considered alive. They can be anesthetized, knocked unconscious, and thus must be conscious. They can be sleep deprived. They can, as I have told you before, communicate with one another through the Wood Wide Web as well as pheromones. They can learn and adapt. And while some do suggest that we go too far in saying they are intelligent or conscious, they are not the inert or inanimate things we have often been taught to see them as. Clearly they are more alive than we often allow ourselves to believe and their interconnectedness with one another as well as with animal life (not least of all humans) shows us a porous relationship between all creatures in creation.

And so we return to the green man. Yesterday, I wrote to you about the green men carvings in Southwell Minster. Poet, Theologian, Priest, and Musician Malcolm Guite has an excellent poem on those very carvings:

Amidst the tympanum
His stone hair startles from
A face in the foliage.
Not just the bearded barleycorn
But a whole field springing,
The vine and all its tendrils,
Unfold from the face,
Trip from the tongue
That speaks the Word
Amidst the tympanum.

But by the rood-screen here,
His face is set like flint,
The Word unheard,
He gives his back to the smiters
His cheeks to them that pluck out the hair,
His spring is come to shame and spitting,
Under the blows the cut stones splinter
The Green Man comes to winter,
To the harness and the harrow
As flails fall to split the bearded husk
And seeds fall to the furrow,
Amidst the tympanum,
Hard by the rood-screen here.

Guite shows us the beauty of these carvings, of creation (itself a symbol of the church) being brought into the church. But this is not Guite's only artistic take on the green man. He has a song on his album, The Green Man and Other Songs, all about the green man. Guite calls him the "unseen king of the ditches, ragged and royal." The whole song is about nature personified, but also brought into our lives. "I'm the goodness in the bread, I'm the wildness in the wine," Guite sings from the Green Man's perspective. And here we see the key, the thing that was missing in Prince Nuada's view of reality. It isn't supposed to be a fight between two sides, nature and culture. Bread is good, wine is good too, but wild, remember Bacchus, remember Dionysus, even as they appear in Prince Caspian. But bread and wine, as we are reminded in the Mass are the fruit of the earth and the work of human hands. It is together that we move forward, not in struggle but in gift exchange. The plants and animals provide us life and food and we provide them with life and food, we benefit each other.

What, ultimately, the Green Man, the Elemental, the forest god, reminds us of is Faërie, and when we live rightly with Faërie, when we remember that God is not just the Lord of men but of elves and trees and angels and animals, when we remember that Christ united all of creation to his divinity by uniting divinity to humanity, then and only then can we live in a right relationship with creation. Until then, and even after, we will continue to need stories from or on the edges of Elfland in order to remind ourselves to see, not just ourselves, but reality itself, plants and animals and angels and whatever else there may be more clearly. Until then, remember, he's the Green Man, don't take his name in vain.
Sincerely,
David

Ordinary Time
6 June 2018
The Edge of Elfland
Concord, New Hampshire

Dearest Readers,
As I continue to think about the green man this week, it dawned me that there is something unusual about his inclusion in churches: he is never green.

The green men are always carved out of stone. This got me to thinking about Tolkien's ents. Let me explain what I mean.

In The Two Towers as Treebeard, the ents, and Merry and Pippin begin their march to Isengard Merry asks a question which Treebeard seems to interpret as a question about the strength of the ents. Treebeard replies:

"'Ho, hm, well, we could, you know! You do not know, perhaps, how strong we are. Maybe you have heard of Trolls? They are mighty strong. But Trolls are only counterfeits, made by the Enemy in the Great Darkness, in mockery of Ents, as Orcs were of Elves. We are stronger than Trols. We are made of bones of the earth. We can split stone like the roots of trees, far quicker, if our minds are roused. If we are not hewn down, or destroyed by fire or blast of sorcery, we could split Isengard into splinters and crack its walls into rubble'" (TT, Book 3 Chapter 4).

On first blush it seems that trolls are related to stone in some manner similar to how ents are related to trees. But, Treebeard does not know all. Tolkien himself reminds us of this in Letter 153, though he does ultimately decide that the stone-trolls at least likely are made counterfeits, quite possibly, though by no means certainly, stones that have become inhabited by maiar in a similar way to how balrogs are spirits of fire which have incarnated themselves. Either way, Treebeard's ultimate point is how much stronger the trees are than stone, and not just stone but all minerals, including metals. This becomes particularly poignant if you know that Isengard comes from two Old English words which mean Iron enclosure. So Treebeard's point is that the tree-men can tear asunder not only stone, but iron.

This, of course, brings me back to del Toro's forest god whose roots can tear up New York city's brick and iron buildings and whose blood can transform even metal cars into luscious grass and flowers. We do not see the ents with quite this life-giving ability, but the destructive force, and a destructive force that would prepare the land for more trees and others plants is evident. But of course, because they are in films and stories, these two green men, are primarily seen as destroyers, as reminders of the destructive power of nature. Yet if del Toro's Princess Nuala is correct, they are givers of life as well. Where can we find this?
While there may be many places one of my favorites is Isaiah 55. Here, in the midst of a discussion about the place of the people of God in the grand scheme of things, in the midst of a discussion about their return to God, we read:

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. For you shall go out in joy,
and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you
shall burst into song,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial,
for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off (Is. 55.10-13).

When the Word returns (for so I interpret this passage) full then the mountains will sing and the trees will clap their hands. This is precisely why, unlike Sauron who may have made the stone-trolls in mockery of the ents, we are not making a mockery of nature when we place green men made of stone in our churches, for ultimately both belong to God, ultimately both will sing his praises.

Christian (most of the time) musician Sufjan Stevens has a song on his album Seven Swans entitle, "All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands." The song has an almost melancholic feel too it as the repeating of the banjo keeps us in one place until finally more instruments are added to it. The singer is desiring to be part of what it is God is doing, part of the great dance, the great parade. In the second verse we hear:

And I heard from the trees a great parade
And I heard from the hills a band was made
And will I be invited to the sound?
And will I be a part of what you've made?

The singer wants to join in this song so fully that, in the final verse, he wants to abolish all of the things that keep him separated from God so he can join fully in the sound that creation sings to God.

So, when you see the green men in a church remember that this is not meant in mockery, but to give face to both the trees and the mountains who will clap their hands and burst into song.

Sincerely,
David