The simplest carvings or sculptures depict a man's face peering out. Some may have leaves for hair, perhaps with a leafy beard. Often leaves or leafy shoots are shown growing from his open mouth and sometimes even from the nose and eyes as well. In the most abstract examples, the carving at first glance appears to be merely stylized foliage, with the facial element only becoming apparent on closer examination. The face is almost always male; green women are rare.
Images of the green man are predominantly found in England but they are also found in the rest of Great Britain, Europe and parts of Asia and North Africa. He may date back as far as the third millennium BC, and is still being reproduced in stone, wood, glass, metal, art, song, story and poem today. He may be found in his guise as dusty stone or wood carving looking down from pillars and ceilings in churches, cathedrals abbeys and secular buildings throughout the world. To some he is seen as a mischievous, sometimes dark figure found in Morris dances, or as the traditional Jack-in-the-Green leading or included in May Day processions each year, or bought to life in new and vibrant traditions. To others he is just a dusty stone or wooden figure brought across from the continent by French stonemasons as a personification of sin that would be seen and understood by the illiterate masses.
