During our visits to historic churches we often come across a green man. These carvings, usually in stone or wood, of a head surrounded with leaves, look decidedly un-Christian and that may well be the case - it wasn't unknown for early Christianity to embrace aspects of what were probably pagan customs. The green man is thought to be a symbol of rebirth, a feature that is both pagan and central to the Christian religion. The earliest examples of such heads seem to post-date the birth of Chritianity and are most common in the Romanesque and Gothic periods. There has been a resurgence of the green man in recent years that has nothing to do with religion or paganism. They can be widely found on sale as garden ornaments, which is the case with the one shown above.
