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The green man is a pagan nature spirit. He seems to have been able to slip between the cracks of Christian ideology, and turns up all over Europe in folk tales, images and rituals. He makes appearances in many churches and cathedrals and pops up all over the richly carved 18th century gravestones in churchyards up and down the country. The Victorians tended to keep him out of the church, but he was a popular architectural ornament, particularly on keystones.
He reminds us of the unstopable force of nature, of how new life follows to fill the void left by death.
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