The colourful history of the green man

All hail our pagan King! The time has come to lay down your crosses and take up the bough of oak. Britain is to return to the old ways – at least if you are to believe the conspiracy theorists, who were distressed to see, on the bottom of the coronation invitation sent out last week, the face of a green man staring back at them. His eyes are bright, his mouth exudes fronds of ivy – the green man calls to us.

Depending on your particular view of the world, his inclusion is either an affront to Christian decency or a jolly salute to our monarch’s peculiarities. The green man is a playfully sinister envoy of the otherworldly. His face, either made entirely of leaves or a fleshy human screaming forth foliage, is carved into hundreds of parish churches. The King will pass under a foliate head when he walks through Westminster Abbey’s quire screen on coronation day.