The Green Man

Intrepid East Riding photographers have solved the mystery of Bridlington's long-lost ancient fertility God - The Green Man.

For centuries, the cheeky green-faced Pagan symbol has been camouflaged out of sight by the ceiling decorations at the town's 12th century Priory.

But by chance, Beeford snapper Stuart Burns and his colleague Leigh Tovey, of Hutton Cranswick, spotted The Green Man while shooting pictures for Bridlington Priory's new visitor guide.....

....."At the time we could not really see The Green Man because the pictures were too dark - but we could lighten them up on the computer and see him in his true glory.

"The Green Man is a popular symbol around the world - particularly throughout Europe - but no one knew for sure where he was in Bridlington.

"I was absolutely thrilled that we found it."

Mr Burns said there are 10 times more images of The Green Man in churches than of Christ himself.

One theory is that in Medieval times people also liked to worship Pagan Gods as Christianity was often forced on them.MORE....

No comments anyone???

No comments on this???

"Mr Burns said there are 10 times more images of The Green Man in churches than of Christ himself.

One theory is that in Medieval times people also liked to worship Pagan Gods as Christianity was often forced on them."

Thanks for the interest Bandit. I thought it was pretty intersting myself, hopefully more people will see it and post their views.

its an interesting fact/article - cant think of much to say bout it tho.

I thought everyone was aware of this anyway.....
Christians pulled all sorts of crap to get us into the churches, nicked our hollidays and replaced them with their own, Took our symbols and wove them back into their own storys they even nabbed Hurn gave him a tale and told us he was now called satan.

b'stards.

It's surprising ( to me anyway ) that the Church would allow a pagan symbol within the walls of a Church, no matter how long it had been there for.

The church is full of pagan symbols. Paganism is far older than christianity, in order to make christianity vaguely acceptable to the people they wished to convert they had to adopt various pagan hollidays and images and ideas.

for example, the father son and holy ghost are simply a masculine version of the mother maiden and hag, the popular image of a crusifix as two intersecting lines is a pagan icon adopted far after the bible was written as a christian icon.

as I said earlier, people were turned from hurn by taking our horned god and re-imaging it as their embodyment of evil (satan)

Christmas was brought in to replace "Yule" the winter solstice.

Harvest festival ais a christian take on Beltane

Christianity absorbed all these aspects becuase if you want to take over somones belief you can't just tell them "sod yer annual partys and yer icons" you have to give them somthing as a substitute.

Don't forget Ostara and the ostara hare.(Easter and easter bunny)

Or Sowhein.(Halloween)

But to the green man, he probably a old diety or sub diety.

Maybe the god/subgod of trees or such, like Pan was in Greek/Roman.

Why ina a church? Catholics stole everything they could from pagans.

Not christians, them catholics didn't allow that, they killed them.

So I guess christianity isn't bad, but catholic. Never heard of a Protestant guy dude
raping a kid, it always a catholic preist.

D@MN IT!!! It's doing it again!

[Edited on 5-12-2002 by James the Lesser]

Only Catholic clergy molest children?

I beg to differ, sir:
www.reformation.com...

(records going back to the 1700s... )
www.davidicke.net...

Rapist/child molester preacher sentenced:
www.reformation.com...

Oral Roberts University produced at least one:
www.bubbaworld.com...

News summaries of Protestant clergy molesting and abusing:
www.cin.org...

Tent revival Protestant preacher sexually molesting boys in Puerto Rico:
ap.tbo.com...

Google produced some 2,200 hits when I asked about 'protestant preacher pedophile' and preacher sexual abuse children' I won't list them all. You get the picture.

You can get a nice picture of what the average sex offender looks like by cruising some police sites:
www.klaaskids.org...

(for the record, they're all ages, whatever the predominant race is of that area, and only 10% are homosexual/lesbian molestors. The rest are almost exclusively men raping women or children.)

I have seen the greenman in a few church's that Iv been to. On one visit the priest told me that the Christian church had taken the symbols of pagan gods to show that the church was happy to except their ways. But there was a different way, the Christian way, and that the truth was that there is only one god and this was the true God to worship. Which makes you think this is a good way to win the pagans over to Christianity. This is why the church's were built on the sites of pagan worship site's and that they built them close to, or on, the ley lines so as to tap into the Earth energy's, this helped to attract the simple pagan folk. For those who did not convert, well that's a different story.

Originally posted by Lupe_101
I thought everyone was aware of this anyway.....
Christians pulled all sorts of crap to get us into the churches, nicked our hollidays and replaced them with their own, Took our symbols and wove them back into their own storys they even nabbed Hurn gave him a tale and told us he was now called satan.

b'stards.

Lupe, now can you please tell me what we did to "your" holidays, and the other suff you wrote?

NEW YEAR'S

New year's is one of the oldest and most universal of all pagan traditions, and nearly every culture has its own customs of celebrating it. The rites and ceremonies expressed mortification, purification, invigoration, and jubilation over life's renewal.

It is to varying degrees in world cultures a remembrance of the creation of the cosmos on the symbolic anniversary of its creation, in order that the gods, the cosmos, and the community may be strengthened. The earliest known record of a new year's festival dates from about 2000 years before Christ in ancient Babylonia, in Mesopotamia. (Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th edition)

The Romans called it Saturnalia in honor of Saturn. It was very popular among the Romans as a time of frolicking, drinking, orgies, and human sacrifice. It was Julius Caesar that established January 1st as new year's day in 46 B.C. when he adopted the Julian calendar.

In 1582 Pope Gregory imposed it on the Western world when his Gregorian calendar reforms were accepted. Germany, Sweden,

Denmark, England conceded to the Gregorian calendar in the 1700s.

But God has already set the date of the beginning of the new year, Gods calendar begins in the spring, Exodus 12:2, Leviticus 23:5, Deuteronomy 16:1 in the month of Abib, also called Nisan, which means green ears.

FATHER TIME

Father Time, the white haired man carrying a scythe, represents the ancient Greek god Cronos (from where we derive the word chronograph which measures time). This ancient mythical reaper supposedly reaped little children in horrible acts of cannibalism.

NEW YEARS BABE

The New Year's Babe actually pictures the rebirth of the ancient Greek god Dionysus, as the spirit of fertility.

VALENTINE'S DAY

"3rd century, Rome, feast day February 14th" (Encyclopedia Britannica)

Centuries before Christ, the Romans celebrated February 14th and 15th as the festival of Lupercalia, a sensual free-for-all, in honor of Lupercus the hunter of wolves. (Encyclopedia Americana)

When Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of Rome, he had the sensual observances toned down. By the time of Pope Gelasius's reign, the festival had become a Christian custom appropriating the name St. Valentine. According to the Encyclopedia Britannia, the name is that of two legendary martyrs whose lives seem to be historicly based. One was a Roman Priest and Physician who suffered martyrdom during the persecution of the Christians. The other, the Bishop of Terni Italy, was also Martyred, in Rome.

CUPID

The word cupid means desire, the bow and arrow symbolize the mighty hunter Lupercus, thus comes the mythology of cupid, depicting a hunter who causes sensual desire to befall on those he hunts.

EASTER

Over time Christianity divided into different factions, each with different ideas of belief. The first Christians kept Gods feast of passover, while the break away factions had added a new concept to passover, that of Christ as the Paschal Lamb. And along with the new conception of Christ as the Passover Lamb came an established day of observance, which unlike Passover is not confined to any one day of the week. According to the New Catholic Encyclopedia, "not only was the significance of the Jewish feast changed by Christians, but also the date. The Jewish method of fixing the date of the 14th of Nisan, did not confine it to one day of the week. The Christians assigned their Pasch to the Sunday following the Jewish feast. By the end of the 2nd century this was the universal custom, except in Asia Minor."

According to Ecclesiastical History book #5, "There was considerable discussion raised respecting the difference of opinion concerning the observance of the passover season. The churches of all Asia kept the fourteenth day of the new moon for the festival of the saviour's passover, in which day the Jews were commanded to kill the passover lamb, it was not the custom to celebrate in this manner in the churches throughout the rest of the world. Hence there were synods and convocations of the bishops on this question, and all unanimously drew up an ecclesiastical decree, stating to all churches in all the places, that the mystery of our Lords resurrection should be celebrated on no other day than Sunday." Note the emphasis is not on commemorating Jesus death, but on a Sunday celebration of his resurrection.

According to Harper's Bible Dictionary, "the Nisan 14th observers were required by Emperor Constantine to conform to the empire wide practice of observing Easter on Sunday following 14th Nisan, rather than on that date itself."

And according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, "The English name Easter is of uncertain origin, but it is believed an Anglo-Saxon Priest in the 8th century derived it from the Anglo-Saxon spring geodess Eostre."

EASTER BUNNY

Since ancient Egypt, the rabbit, hare, or bunny have been associated with symbols of fertility during the spring season.

EASTER EGG

The egg is part of the Indo-European fertility lore associated with spring.

Both the egg and the hare were part of the ancient pagan spring festivals, and as time went by, became embraced and combined in Christian practices.

LENT

Lent is a forty day period of abstinence from certain foods, its observance began when Priests started losing their apostolical fervour of devotion, they were then recalled from their secular cares by a canonical indiction of fasting, according to Antiquities of the Christian Church.

Eating eggs where formerly forbidden during lent, but now have become prominent as symbols of new life and resurrection.

HALLOWEEN

All Hallow's Eve or Halloween stems from the centuries old Celtic and Anglo-Saxon rites performed by the ancient Druids to

honor the dead, the belief being, that your soul was immortal and lived on elsewhere, and supposedly revisiting their homes on this day. It was the only day in which the help of Hurn was invoked for marriage, luck, health, and death. (Encyclopedia Britannica) This celebration helped to preserve the false doctrine of the soul being immortal.

Halloween was the evening celebration in anticipation of November 1st, celebrated among the pagans in honor of Samhain the lord of the dead.

The first of November was later adopted to honor all saints, known and unknown, this according to the Catholic Encyclopedia. A single day was appointed so that none of the saints that were supposedly alive in heaven would be left out, it being a church policy of incorporating pagan folk ideas into the church.

TRICK OR TREAT

"Mischief making was introduced in the United States by immigrants in the 19th century, when young men, and boys, would overturn sheds and outhouses, breaking windows, and causing other property damage. Years later it became observed mainly by small children in costume demanding a treat, to avoid having a trick played (property damage) by them on the property owner."

(Encyclopedia Britannica)

CHRISTMAS

The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of religious knowledge explains, "Christmas, the date of the festival depended on the pagan Brumalia (December 25) following the Saturnalia (December 17-24), celebrating the shortest day of the year and the new sun.

The pagan Saturnalia and Brumalia were to deeply entrenched in popular custom to be set aside by Christian influence. The pagan festival was so popular that Christians were glad to continue its celebration. It was a festival of merry making and they did not want to give it up. When Emperor Constantine professed to be a Christian, Christianity became very popular. Constantine looking for a way to bring Christians and sun worshipers together renamed the festival Brumalia (birthday of the sun god) to the birthday of the son of god, so that both sides could come together in celebration of the festival."

CHRISTMAS TREE

The origin of the Christmas tree goes back to ancient babylon, with the death of Nimrod, founder of babylon. When Nimrod died his wife, Semiramis, claimed that a full grown evergreen tree grew overnight from a dead tree stump, and that it symbolized Nimrods rebirth into a spirit being. She also claimed that Nimrods spirit would visit the tree and leave gifts upon it each December. Through this claim, Nimrod came to be known as the son of Baal, or son of the son god. This started the ritual use of evergreens, and was so prevalent that Jeremiah makes mention of it in JER 10:2-6.

SANTA CLAUS AND GIFT GIVING

"The name Santa Claus is derived from the name Saint Nicholis, a Roman Catholic Bishop who lived in the 4th century, the Bishop of Myra, who was honored by the Greeks and Latins on the 6th of December. The legend is of his secret bestowal of dowries on three daughters of an impoverished citizen, and thus originating the custom of giving secret presents on the eve of St. Nicholas. It was later moved to December 25th, and thus the association of Santa Claus with Christmas, and the giving of gifts in secret."

(Encyclopedia Britannica)

MISTLETOE, HOLLY WREATH, AND YULE LOG

Mistletoe was used during the festival of the winter solstic because it was considered sacred to the sun, and it was believed to have healing power. Kissing under the mistletoe was one of several customs to be observed during the night, celebrating the death of the old sun and the birth of the new winter sun, or winter solstic.

The holly wreath was also considered sacred to the sun god, and its use was that of decorating places of worship during the festival.

The yule log is a symbol of the sun, or sun log. Lighting of fires or candles was meant to encourage the sun god during the winter season, yule tide season, sun tide season.



[Edited on 7-12-2002 by Toltec]

I thought Jedi Master would be all over this one.

Isn't it obvious that this "wee green man" (a.k.a. leprechaun, a.k.a. headless green knight, etc.,) is merely a representation of Master Yoda, who crash-landed on Earth - then known as Dagoba - a long time ago...?

-Savonrola