I was examining the detail on a fine 14th-century rood when I looked up. And there he was, high above, watching. Leaves flowed from his mouth and nose, and leaves issued from the corners of his eyes. He seemed extraordinarily alive: though he was wholly of stone, I could have sworn he winked. Once met, never forgotten. I began to see him everywhere.
It is a common phenomenon among Green Man enthusiasts, as the scholar Ruth Wylie confirms. You find them across Europe, from Russia to France. There are Green Men in India, in Mexico. And two are never the same. Like Mike Harding, featured in this afternoon's Radio 4 introduction to the Green Man, she keeps a database of foliate heads that shows no sign of reaching completion. If you want to find him yourself, it is easy. We headed for the unbelievably pretty old market town of Axbridge on the A towards Wells in Somerset.
St John the Baptist's is a handsome 15th-century church, lovingly kept; and it doesn't take us long to find our first foliate head. The choir stalls are Victorian the Victorians, it seems, were rather taken with Green Men , and though most are simply leafy, one has a small and distinct face among the leaves, like something out of Alice in Wonderland.
There's something startling about a piece of ecclesiastical decoration suddenly coming to life: almost as though it is done for a joke, I think, raising my eyes to the top of a pillar and immediately seeing another, much older and more sombre gentleman with leaves streaming out of his mouth. What is he saying, I wonder? What is the point of these vegetative faces? No one knows. In the north aisle, there is a medieval wooden ceiling; and, sure enough, we spot two more foliate heads up there, one mischievous, the other stern.
It is a good idea to take a torch on your Green Man searches; their faces are easily overlooked. The Green Man is nothing if not discreet. A mile out of Axbridge lies Cheddar, home to cheese, caves, good walks, and the post-holes of a fine Anglo-Saxon palace, dating from a time when the entire area was covered in forest, a favourite royal hunting-ground. So it is not surprising to find more Green Men here, in the ceiling of the parish church of St Andrew, on the A itself.
