>>41013238
>(green man wasn't seen) until around the 12th century and were pretty much only seen in Europe.
Mentioned this before in this thread, but check out "Love in the Western World" by Denis de Rougemont. He's not a lightweight. He was a serious academic and one of the people that laid the groundwork for the EU. He explains all of this. Yeah, Green Man didnt pop up until the 12th Century. That's when stuff like the Bogomil Crusades and the Albigensian Crusades started. That's when widespread suppression of Cathar beliefs and Pagan beliefs started in Southern France/Northern Spain. That's when weird stories like Grail Quests and Sir Gawain started popping up. These events are connected. Beliefs system (I'll use Pagan as a catchall) were forced underground, but were spread through poetry, Troubadour song, love mythology, and pop culture in general. Their beliefs became encoded into popular culture to avoid suppression and to enable expression at a time when the punishment for such things was death. Green Man was absolutely Pagan.