The Guy and the Green Man

This week’s post clearly has to include mention of Guy Fawkes Day (November 5), but to balance out ‘the guy’ I thought I’d also introduce the Green Man (more mysterious than Guy Fawkes).

A brief installment of encapsulated British history. We’ll start on Mar 24, 1603, with the death of Queen Elizabeth I. Her successor was the James VI, King of Scotland (who was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, a cousin to Elizabeth, and whom Elizabeth had put to death as a traitor), who became James I, King of England. Among the many who were unhappy with the new monarch were the Catholics, who wanted to install a  Catholic monarch on the throne (James’ cousin Arabella Stuart – Sir Walter Raleigh was arrested for his role in this plot). In 1604, James tries to arbitrate between the Puritans and the Catholics on the question of who decided questions of doctrine… from this discussion eventually arose the King James version of the Bible. Unhappy with this result, a group of Catholics, led by Robert Catesby (whose ancestor ‘the Cat’ was advisor to Richard III), hatched the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, a (failed) attempt to assassinate the king by blowing up the House of Lords at the opening of the House of Parliament. However, an anonymous tip to a member of the House of Lords foiled the plot. On November 5, Guy Fawkes was discovered in a cellar beneath Parliament, guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder. Then followed gruesome torture and killings of some of the conspirators, described to us in detail by Mark (detail that I will spare you here). But the real reason for guy Fawkes day is an excuse for fireworks and bonfires (including a ritual burning of ‘the guy’, which I find just a bit disconcerting). [The day has also been claimed by anti-government activists – apparently some of the Occupy movement in London tried to march into Parliament Square yesterday.] 

But when in Rome… As there was no big fireworks display scheduled for Bristol, Mark looked up other options. We decided to go to Bradford-on-Avon, a lovely little town just beyond Bath. “We” included not only me, Mark and Alison, but also my niece Susie and her friend Eric, who arrived yesterday! We headed off by train in the mid-afternoon, so that we had a bit of time to wander around Bradford-on-Avon and to have tea, scones, clotted cream and jam at The Bridge Inn, a 16th century building (Susie, our resident historic preservationist, was fascinated by the various bracings on the building, which she described as ‘duct tape for buildings’).

The celebration was in a large field on the other side of town. The first thing that we were impressed with was the very elaborate guy, complete with torch and sitting on gunpowder boxes… he reminded me of Burning Man (which, I suppose, makes sense!). Sorry about the fuzzy photos but they will give you a sense of the spectacle. A couple of local bands played music – we were remarking on the youth of the players given the 60s music they chose to play, until Mark discovered that they were called “The Grateful Dads” – so we drank cider and ate pork sandwiches while waiting for the fireworks. One good thing about the early nightfall is that the fireworks could start early (at 7). The fireworks display was much more elaborate than any of us anticipated, and ended with lighting the guy’s torch, and then the bonfire itself (which was impressive in and of itself – large enough for us to feel its warmth, even though we were quite far away!). And then the fireworks seemed to continue all night. As we walked back along the floating harbor from the train station, the noise of the fireworks reverberated across the water and flashes of color appeared on the skyline to both the north and the south. I was even woken up around 5am by some particularly loud explosions, so I guess they continued all night…

  

The walk in Bradford-on-Avon took us past a quaint row of (formerly) weavers’ cottages high on the hillside, one of which had a ‘green man’ on the wall... as I had just gotten interested in the green man, I was thrilled, and so add a short addendum to the guy post.  “Green men” started showing up in England in the 12th century, but ‘foliate heads’ are apparently common throughout the Roman Empire, and date to the 1st century. Additionally, ‘foliate heads’ appeared in carvings in northern Europe before the Romans, and it has also been suggested that ornate Celtic designs bear resemblances to these leafy heads. In England, “green men” are not actually green, as they are carved in wood or stone - the green designation stems from the leaves that tend to sprout from their mouths and encircle their heads. The Green Man has become a sort of Rohrshach test for society ... from a symbol of May Day rituals to old age to mortality, the Green Man symbol has been adopted and interpreted across centuries and cultures. I like the fact that he just appears, tucked away in ancient carvings ... and seeking out famous green man carvings around England seems like a fun addition to other sorts of touristing!