Ed and Will Walking North
Ed and Will are intrepid explorers walking the ancient and not so ancient pathways of Britain singing for their supper and seeking out ancient songs and tales. On June 5th, they set off on a new quest, to walk north for Liverpool. From South Somerset, they aim to cross the Welsh mountains for Anglessey, before hitting the modern cultural capital. They will record an album of folk songs in acoustic hotspots that they discover whilst walking. I’ve asked Ed and Will to keep an ear open for any songs or tales that involve the Green man or the Jack-in-the-Green and hope to cross their path at some point this summer.
They are also seeking out historic springs and wells, to get a taste of Britain’s heritage drinking water.
Ed and Will and friends have formed a Charitable Trust, called Flowing Britain, to raise awareness of historic British potable springs and wells, for public education and health. They believe everyone deserves access to safe natural drinking water, within an hour’s walk of their home.
For more info go to their website http://awalkaroundbritain.com/
And if you see them on their way don’t be afraid… join them and sing along.
It is not getting dark.
Green Man or not Green Man?
Green Man or not Green Man?
Some carvings of Neptune have this feature, but the Titchfield one lacks the beard that is common on Neptune sculptures.”
Museum of British Folklore Pop Up Shop
The Museum of British Folklore’s first Pop-Up shop will be at at Stratford-Upon-Avon Civic Hall, Warwickshire. It will open on Tuesday 4th October and run until Saturday 28th October (Tues – Sat 11:30-5:00)
The fabulous greenman skittle above is a one off and will be available for £75
As well as showing items from the Museum of British Folklore collection, visitors will be able to purchase a wide range of lovely things to help support the museum and its development. Along with Museum mugs and T-shirts complete with the Jonny Hannah designed logo and icons, there will be a positive plethora of Firework related merchandise. Tote bags and tea-towels, posters, postcards, giant fireworks filled with matches and pencils, firework inspired embroidery kits, cushions and toys, jewellery and even headwear, will all pay homage to the UK’s rich firework heritage. A publication to accompany the exhibition will be for sale priced at £19.99.
In addition, the Pop-Up venue will host a small exhibition about the Museum, giving visitors the opportunity to learn more about British Folklore.
The aims of the Museum include:
Drawing greater public attention to the rich and continuing tradition of folklore as a vital component in the social fabric and cultural identity of the British Isles.
Actively encouraging the study of traditional customs and seasonal events as they presently exist in the British Isle focusing on the way indigenous folk traditions are revived, altered or adapted in a contemporary context.
To accurately portray the history and rich tradition of folk practice throughout the ages.
For more information about The Museum of British Folklore go to http://museumofbritishfolklore.com
For their fantastic new Remember Remember video (featuring a green man at the start) go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvsM5XRA138
And for details about the fireworks exhibition go to http://tinyurl.com/6cqlrsp
Wassailing the Apple Trees
I have reproduced COTGM member Bruce Eaton’s brilliant post on Wassailing the Apple Trees from January 2009 below. For those interested in attending an event Wassailing the Apple Trees will take place in many locations throughout the UK in January 2011. I would like to thank Andy Paciorek for the fantastic Apple Tree Man picture above. You can see more of Andy’s work at: http://www.batcow.co.uk/strangelands
In Carhampton, Somerset Wassailing will take place on Saturday 15th January 2011 (The Saturday nearest to the Old Twelfth Night 17th January). Wassailing will also take place in Brent Knoll at West Croft Cider on the same day.
At Carhampton the wassail celebration takes place in the old orchard behind the Butcher’s Arms, the villagers form a circle around the largest apple tree, hang pieces of toast soaked in cider in the branches for the robins, who represent the ‘good spirits’ of the tree. A shotgun is fired overhead to scare away evil spirits (seen by some as worms and maggots) Four wassailing veterans then line up near the apple trees and launch into a series of wonderful folk songs about cider, some adapted from traditional songs with the lyrics adapted to give them a cider theme! Then brandishing their traditional cider crocks, they sing the Carhampton Wassailing Song:
Old apple tree, we wassail thee,
And hoping thou wilt bear
For the Lord doth know where we shall be
Till apples come another year.
For to bear well, and to bloom well
So merry let us be,
Let every man take off his hat,
And shout to the old apple tree!
Old apple tree, we wassail thee,
And hoping thou wilt bear
Hatfuls, capfuls and three bushel bagsful
And a little heap under the stairs,
Hip, Hip, Hooray!
The last three lines are repeated and the whole crowd join in the chant. When the singing is over and cups empty, people retire inside to listen to a local folkband.
Feel free to add to this post if you have your own Wassailing event for 2011.
So here is Bruce’s article, after which I have reproduced a few more wassailing songs:
The ancient tradition of ‘Wassailing’ the apple trees on the 17th January (Old Twelfth Night) is particularly associated with Somerset and the South West of England, and is one of a number of folk customs termed ‘Wassailing’. In this instance the aim of the wassail is threefold, to drive evil spirits out of the orchard, to invite the good spirits in and to wake the apple trees up from their winter slumber. It is also a time to drink copious amounts of scrumpy cider and have a pig roast and a bonfire.
The evil spirits are dealt with easily enough by banging on pots and pans, blowing whistles and maybe firing off a shotgun or two. This accomplished the wassilers now sing to the apple trees to wake them up. There are many traditional wassailing songs and different localities have there own versions. The song below is sung each year at the Butchers Arms pub in Carhampton, Somerset, where they claim to have the oldest continuous apple tree wassail in the country, and is a fairly typical example.
Old apple tree, we wassail thee
And hope that you wilt bear
For the Gods doth know where we shall be
Come apples another year
To bloom well and to bear well
So merry let us be
Let every man take off his hat
And shout out to the old apple tree
Old apple tree, we wassail thee
And hope that you will bear
Hatfuls, capfuls, three bushel bagfuls
And a little heap under the stair
Three cheers for the old apple tree:
Hip, hip, hooray
Hip, hip, hooray
Hip, hip, hooray
Obviously the ‘little heap under the stair’ is more cider brewing. In some ceremonies the trunk of the tree is knocked on hard with a stick to help wake the tree. This may also have the beneficial effect of dislodging harmful insects. Finally the good spirit of the orchard is invited in. The good spirit is not, however, represented by our old friend the Green Man, but rather by the robin. Toast soaked in cider is hung amongst the branches of the trees as an offering to the birds. The robins are also very good at hoovering up any parasitic insects that were dislodged the previous night.
Wassailing the apple trees as a custom very nearly died out in the late 20th century, but clung on in Carhampton and a handful of orchards across Somerset. In recent years, however, there has been something of a Renaissance in these folk customs and wassails have been cropping up right across the West Country and even further a field. But what is the antiquity of this custom? The term wassail is derived from two Old English components, namely ‘waes’ and ‘hael’, meaning literally ‘good health’. The traditional reply to this ancient toast was supposed to be ‘drinc hael!’ and is first recorded in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain written c.1140. Some authors dispute this and see ‘waes hael – drinc hael’ as a 12th century confection rather than a genuine Anglo-Saxon toast. In The English Year (2006) Steve Roud looks at the linguistic evidence.
‘Wassail as a general salutation existed in Old Norse as well as in Old English, but the use of the word as a drinking toast is not found in any of the Teutonic languages, and appears to be a peculiarly English formation from the Eleventh or Twelfth century… Later use of the word, in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, show that it had undergone a considerable extension of meaning, with wassail meaning a party, or the drink that was enjoyed there, or the words said when drinking, or even the songs that were sung.’
(Roud p.556)
This is no doubt the reason that we have a plethora of folk customs all termed ‘Wassailing’ and is why we cannot trace the antiquity of wassailing the apple trees through etymology. My personal feeling is that the ceremony pre-dates the name given to it and I strongly suspect pre-Christian and possibly pre-English roots.* And where is my evidence to support this claim? Well that, like the origin of the Green Man, is proving rather elusive.
[1][*] The expansion of the English kingdom of Wessex into the territory of Dumnonia, a British kingdom which encompassed south Somerset, Devon and Dorset, only happened late in the 7th century, by which time Wessex had officially converted to Christianity.
And here are another two Wassailing songs:
Gloucestershire Wassail (Traditional)
Wassail, wassail all over the town
Our toast it is white and our ale it is brown
Our bowl it is made of the white maple tree
With the wassailing bowl, we’ll drink to thee
So here is to Cherry and to his right cheek
Pray God send our master a good piece of beef
And a good piece of beef that may we all see
With the wassailing bowl, we’ll drink to thee
And here is to Dobbin and to his right eye
Pray God send our master a good Christmas pie
A good Christmas pie that may we all see
With the wassailing bowl, we’ll drink to thee
So here is to Broad Mary and to her broad horn
May God send our master a good crop of corn
And a good crop of corn that may we all see
With the wassailing bowl, we’ll drink to thee
And here is to Fillpail and to her left ear
Pray God send our master a happy New Year
And a happy New Year as e’er he did see
With the wassailing bowl, we’ll drink to thee
And here is to Colly and to her long tail
Pray God send our master he never may fail
A bowl of strong beer! I pray you draw near
And our jolly wassail it’s then you shall hear
Come butler, come fill us a bowl of the best
Then we hope that your soul in heaven may rest
But if you do draw us a bowl of the small
Then down shall go butler, bowl and all
Then here’s to the maid in the lily white smock
Who tripped to the door and slipped back the lock
Who tripped to the door and pulled back the pin
For to let these jolly wassailers in.
Gower Wassail (Traditional / Phil Tanner)
A-wassail, a-wassail, throughout all this town.
Our cup it is white and our ale it is brown.
Our wassail is made of the good ale and cake,.
Some nutmeg and ginger, the best we could get.
Al di dal – al di dal di dal
Al di dal di dal – al di dal di dee
Al de deral – al de derry
Sing too rel I do
Our wassail is made of an elderberry bough.
Although my good neighbour, we’ll drink unto thou..
Besides all on earth, we’ll have apples in store,
Pray let us come in for it’s cold by the door.
We know by the moon that we are not too soon,.
And we know by the sky that we are not too high,.
We know by the star that we are not too far,.
And we know by the ground that we are within sound.
Now master and mistress if you are within
Pray send out your maid with her lily-white skin
For to open the door without more delay
Our time it is precious and we cannot stay
Here’s a health to our Colley and her croo’ed horn
May God send her Master a good crop of corn
Of barley and wheat and all sorts of grain
May God send her Mistress a long life to reign
Now master and mistress – thanks to you we’ll give
And for our jolly wassail as long as we live
And if we should live til another new year
Perhaps we may call and see who do live here
Green Man Encounter
October Plenty (Featuring the Berry Man) Sunday 24th October
The Greenman (In his autumnal guise of The Berry Man) will be walking out with the Lions part at their October Plenty festival on Sunday the 24th Octobe from 12 noon on the Bankside outside Shakespeare’s Globe.
October Plenty is an Autumn harvest celebration held annually in Southwark. Beginning on the Bankside, by Shakespeare’s Globe, October Plenty mixes ancient seasonal customs and theatre with contemporary festivity, joining with historic Borough Market, Southwark.
October Plenty is a collective celebration of the seasons, weather and food, in a public place, with access to everyone. The event is free, and happens whatever the weather.
The October Plenty events & highlights:
The Corn Queene
A huge Corn Queene effigy heavy with ‘Plenty’ – wheat, barley and other grains, and apples, root vegetables and foliage from the Borough Market – appears in a procession around the front of the Globe, Bankside, with the Company of actors and the time-honoured Hobby Horse in attendance, strung with cakes and loaves and led by the Berry Man.
The Berry Man
The Berry Man – our Autumn incarnation of the original Green Man – decked with wild fruits and foliage, leads the company. He carries an Apple Tree to where it will be placed within the Bankside area, with general songs and music on the street for all.
The Procession
After gathering a sizeable crowd, we then move through the streets to the Borough Market. There in the Green Market there is time to savour the delights on offer: soul cakes, apple biscuits, conker fights, cider from the New Forest, apple bobbing, a great beer selection and the wonderful market stalls as well as more dancing.
The Play
The play performed changes from year to year; we like them to be short-ish and funny-ish. Last year the Company will perform two of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
The Nun’s Priest’s story of Chanticleer and Partelote and that which the Reeve tells are amongst the best known and best loved of Chaucer’s stories.
Newly adapted for October Plenty and spiced with festive spirit and song, these plays are performed in Southwark where Chaucer’s pilgrims first gathered – you’ll be laughing and gasping over your cider!
The Story Orchard
We create a little glade of young English apple trees as a space for children to gather. There they can decorate and re-clothe the trees with green wishes (paper apples) and listen to stories about apples, markets, harvest time, bees and London sparrows!
There is a tasting table of old apple types from London by Brogdale Horticultural Trust with decorations created at Roots and Shoots, the Lambeth community gardens environment project where the Corn Queene is created.
More details at: http://www.thelionspart.co.uk/
If anyone can send us some pictures of this years Berry Man for the blog I would be most grateful
Tim Healey on Questions Questions
Eagle eared listeners may have heard Tim Healey on Radio 4’s Questions Questions yesterday with his query relating to the possible eastern ancestory of the green man. Also appearing on the programme was Mercia MacDermott author of “Explore Green Men”. For those who missed it you can listen again at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00tgwlh/b00tgw75/Questions_Questions_26_08_2010/ I’ve also posted a discussion topic on the BBC discussion board.
The Green Children of Woolpit
The BBC broadcast a fascinating programme on The Green Children of Woolpit today. If you missed it then try the listen again facility on the BBC Radio 4 website. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/radio/bbc_radio_four
The Green Children reportedly appeared mysteriously in a field in the village of Woolpit in twelth century Suffolk and were presumed to be brother and sister. They spoke a strange language and had green skin and would only eat green beans. The boy only survived a short time but the girl is said to have adapted to other foods, lost the green colour of her skin and learnt English. She explained that they came from an underground world known as St Martin’s Land.
Thories abound on how the legend originated and whether it is based on fact. From lost orphaned children of Flemish settlers who managed to survive on wild food and became green through a form of anaemia to lost fairy children or aliens. It is also suggested that the legend is an echo of an ancient fairy tale and links with the idea of fertility and re-birth in much the same way that the green man may do.
www.thecompanyofthegreenman.co.uk
More on the Oakley Green Man Mount
Brett Thorn from the Buckinghamshire County Museum has been kind enough to send us a multiple shot of the mount which may help to answer some of Kath’s Questions. Our thanks again to the Portable Antiquities Scheme (further details at http://www.finds.org.uk/ )
Another medieval metal mount! by Kath Stonedog
Following on from the blog entry on 3 September 2009 I’ve managed to find another one, from Oakley in Buckinghamshire. Rather than the Weymouth leafmask however, this is the head of “a male bearded figure issuing from two sprigs of foliage” as the Treasure Annual Report for 2005-2006 puts it. You can view the Finds Document here (Item 508). It is silver gilt – hence the impressive golden colour! – and dated to the late C14 orC15.
If anyone can make it, this lovely wee thing, only 27mm * 27mm, is currently part of an exhibition Legends of the Wildwood at the Buckinghamshire County Museum in Aylesbury. You can view details of the Legends of the Wildwood Exhibition here. The exhibition closes on 9 May 2010 and Archaeology Curator Brett Thorn says that even when that display is ended, anyone who wishes to see it in person is more than welcome to make an appointment to visit the stores to do so.
One reason that these small pieces are important is that they give us possible examples of the Green Man being used outwith an ecclesiastical context. Admittedly they need not be secular but there is that possibility! In this they are akin to the beautiful knife handle found in excavations in Perth.
I wonder if it is complete as it is, or if the stem of the leaves show signs of breakage? The photo, which we include with permission from the Portable Antiquities scheme (further details at www.finds.org.uk ) seems to show that the top is silver gilt too, which would mean that the foliage didn’t originally extend further. Contemporary images of the Tree of Jesse usually have the trunk springing from a reclining figure’s loins or body rather than the head but…
Thanks go to Brett Thorn and the Buckinghamshire County Museum http://www.buckscc.gov.uk/ for help in assembling data for this entry. The Portable Antiquities scheme encourages people to register their finds and so make them available to others (like us!). Finds without context lose so much of their real value.
Kath Stonedog
Wassailing the Apple Trees by Bruce Eaton
The ancient tradition of ‘Wassailing’ the apple trees on the 17th January (Old Twelfth Night) is particularly associated with Somerset and the South West of England, and is one of a number of folk customs termed ‘Wassailing’. In this instance the aim of the wassail is threefold, to drive evil spirits out of the orchard, to invite the good spirits in and to wake the apple trees up from their winter slumber. It is also a time to drink copious amounts of scrumpy cider and have a pig roast and a bonfire.
The evil spirits are dealt with easily enough by banging on pots and pans, blowing whistles and maybe firing off a shotgun or two. This accomplished the wassilers now sing to the apple trees to wake them up. There are many traditional wassailing songs and different localities have there own versions. The song below is sung each year at the Butchers Arms pub in Carhampton, Somerset, where they claim to have the oldest continuous apple tree wassail in the country, and is a fairly typical example.
Old apple tree, we wassail thee
And hope that you wilt bear
For the Gods doth know where we shall be
Come apples another year
To bloom well and to bear well
So merry let us be
Let every man take off his hat
And shout out to the old apple tree
Old apple tree, we wassail thee
And hope that you will bear
Hatfuls, capfuls, three bushel bagfuls
And a little heap under the stair
Three cheers for the old apple tree:
Hip, hip, hooray
Hip, hip, hooray
Hip, hip, hooray
Obviously the ‘little heap under the stair’ is more cider brewing. In some ceremonies the trunk of the tree is knocked on hard with a stick to help wake the tree. This may also have the beneficial effect of dislodging harmful insects. Finally the good spirit of the orchard is invited in. The good spirit is not, however, represented by our old friend the Green Man, but rather by the robin. Toast soaked in cider is hung amongst the branches of the trees as an offering to the birds. The robins are also very good at hoovering up any parasitic insects that were dislodged the previous night.
Wassailing the apple trees as a custom very nearly died out in the late 20th century, but clung on in Carhampton and a handful of orchards across Somerset. In recent years, however, there has been something of a Renaissance in these folk customs and wassails have been cropping up right across the West Country and even further a field. But what is the antiquity of this custom? The term wassail is derived from two Old English components, namely ‘waes’ and ‘hael’, meaning literally ‘good health’. The traditional reply to this ancient toast was supposed to be ‘drinc hael!’ and is first recorded in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain written c.1140. Some authors dispute this and see ‘waes hael – drinc hael’ as a 12th century confection rather than a genuine Anglo-Saxon toast. In The English Year (2006) Steve Roud looks at the linguistic evidence.
‘Wassail as a general salutation existed in Old Norse as well as in Old English, but the use of the word as a drinking toast is not found in any of the Teutonic languages, and appears to be a peculiarly English formation from the Eleventh or Twelfth century… Later use of the word, in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, show that it had undergone a considerable extension of meaning, with wassail meaning a party, or the drink that was enjoyed there, or the words said when drinking, or even the songs that were sung.’
(Roud p.556)
This is no doubt the reason that we have a plethora of folk customs all termed ‘Wassailing’ and is why we cannot trace the antiquity of wassailing the apple trees through etymology. My personal feeling is that the ceremony pre-dates the name given to it and I strongly suspect pre-Christian and possibly pre-English roots.* And where is my evidence to support this claim? Well that, like the origin of the Green Man, is proving rather elusive.
[1][*] The expansion of the English kingdom of Wessex into the territory of Dumnonia, a British kingdom which encompassed south Somerset, Devon and Dorset, only happened late in the 7th century, by which time Wessex had officially converted to Christianity.
Woodcarving & Sculpture
When he began carving, COTGM member Mick Waterhouse turned to churches to find what he considered the finest of the craft to study and copy. It was there that he came across the archetypal “Green Man” image that has appeared in architecture and decoration through the ages.
This Image, the combination of foliage with faces and the human form, runs through much of his work and expresses his feelings on the significance of man’s influence on and place in the organic cycle, as well as hinting at an ancient mystecism that medieval craftsmen left in their work.
Mick works in locally found timbers, especially Oak, which he finds lends itself to the “tooled” finish he prefers. You can see more of Mick’s work on our flickr site or at: http://www.sculptureatbicester.org.uk/MickWaterhousePersonalPage.html
Green Man Sign
I came across COTGM member Andrew Smith’s website and loved his Green Man pub sign so much that I asked him if he would kindly allow us to show it. Andrews site is at
www.thesignsmith.co.uk (Go on you know you want one!)
Green Man Ghosts?
The following report is taken from the pages of the South Bucks Star of September 26th, 1986:
Phantom of the Forest
A GHOSTLY figure dressed in green startled two motorists as they drove past a crematorium just before midnight.
The apparition suddenly loomed up at the side of the road sending shivers down the spine of driver Mark Nursey and his girlfriend Allyson Buleptt, who was in the car behind.
Mark, of Hepplewhite Close, High Wycombe, said: “The most uncanny thing was the way it stood. It seemed to be wearing what I can only describe as a big green jumper. I couldn’t make out the head or hands. It seemed to be stooping but was about 5ft 11ins tall and well built.”
The ghost was seen outside Hughenden Crematorium, Four Ashes Lane, Cryers Hill.
One theory is the figure was the spirit of the forest, a green man, as depicted on a number of pub signs in the Chilterns. He is also related to Herne the Hunter, spirit of the forest as depicted on TV’s Robin of Sherwood.
A green man is also said to haunt the woods at Fingest. Ghosts are traditionally seen around midnight – the witching hour – and around graveyards.
Another clue to his appearance may be a ley line passing near the haunted spot. Ley lines – alignments of ancient sites such as churches, stone circles and holy wells – are thought by some to possess mysterious powers.
Strange Folklore Society, based in High Wycombe, is investigating a ley line that starts at the end of Four Ashes Lane.
On the line is a pond said to be inhabited by a dragon, St Mary’s Church, Princes Risborough and a holy well desecrated last year by black magicians.
Speen Witch’s Stone – said to cover buried treasure but guarded by the ghost of a witch or highwayman – is also on the ley line. The green man ghost in Four Ashes Lane was standing just yards from the ley line.
After reading the previous article another witness came forward and this is the report that appeared in The Star of October 17th, 1986:
“ANOTHER witness of the phantom of the forest has recalled his terrifying ordeal. The seven-foot tall green ghost was seen by warehouseman Phil Mullett just yards from where 21-year-old Mark Nursey saw the figure on Four Ashes Road, Cryers Hill, near High Wycombe.
Mark’s sighting, reported in the Star, September 26, happened just before midnight by Hughenden Garden of Rest on the road. His girlfriend Allyson Bulpett also saw the ghost. When Phil, 28, of Dashwood Avenue, High Wycombe, read the account he realised Mark had seen the same figure he saw eight years previously.
Phil said: “It gave me quite a shock to read it. The account was so close to my own. It was about 9.30pm when I drove into Four Ashes Road and on turning my car lights on full I saw this green person appear from the right hand side of the road. It drifted out to the centre of the road and turned towards me. It waved its arms, not to frighten but as if to warn me to keep back. It drifted into the hedge on the other side of the road but as I got closer it came out again to the centre, turned and lifted its arms. I knew I was going to hit it. I think I cried out or shouted something.”
Phil braked and although he must have hit the figure when he got out look there was nothing there. He said the figure was bright green but appeared to have no legs or hands. The body was solid and it stood about seven foot tall. Instead of a face there was just a misty grey round shape. Strange Folklore Society is investigating the sightings.
Although presented in typical tabloid fashion (Has anyone actually ever seen a ghost in a greveyard at midnight!!!) the above experiences are nonetheless fascinating, does anyone else know of any similar reports? Please add as a comment or e-mail me at greenman@virgin.net