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All summer long, he has been our bonny god in green, and we have loved him for it.

But now come the days—so poignant, so bittersweet—for which he is called in the Old Language of the Witches Wulder, for his splendor.

His festive coat of colors he dons now, different each day: Earth's yearly gift of favor to her first-born and (they say) best-loved child.

Alas, such gifts of favor are apt to be preludes to deeds of blood.

They say that he's god of women, and the artists show him naked amid the women's pulsing dance.

Verdelet, the witches named him: the Master-in-Green.

He's green.

(They say that in the old days they greened him with copper and ground malachite.)

There's a shaggy crown of leaves bound round his head, and leafy ruffs at his wrists and ankles as well. He rustles when he moves. He's the Green.

Green lord of chlorophyll, twin to the blood lord of beasts: like his brother, both wild and tame. Of the two, he's the rooted, the calm one, the peaceful, the thinker of long thoughts.

Don't be fooled.

Here in the US, the “Walk” icon at pedestrian crossings is a little white guy. (Figures.)

But in the UK he's green.

In the London suburb where I lived, the sign at the corner crosswalk read: Pedestrians Wait for the Green Man. I always found this highly amusing.

(No, I did not steal the sign. I did not.)

Hear O People of the Morning Star

In 1547 a woman haled before the Inquisition at Navarre to answer charges of witchcraft managed to outwit her captors and escape.

She had secreted her jar of unguent on her person. Before the incredulous eyes of her judges, she transformed into a screech owl and flew away through a window.

The story is not difficult to understand. The active alkaloids of flying ointment are toxic when taken internally. There is escape and escape.

“What do you know about the Green Man?”

Jim isn't pagan, but his husband, who is, told him that I was the one to talk to. In my pagan arrogance, I could understand why he would be interested in the Green Man. What I couldn't understand was why he should be so interested.

I rattled on for a while about late Roman Bacchic motifs and medieval sculpture, clearly missing the point entirely. Finally I trailed off and asked the question I should have asked first.

“Why do you ask?” I asked him. Thank Goddess.

This autumn children's game, a variant of "tag," comes from the old Hwicce tribal territories in England's southwest Midlands. Like many traditional children's games, it is circular, self-replicating, and orally transmitted. The game's ritual structure and deeply mythic resonances will hardly be lost on anyone likely to be reading this post.

Players gather in a circle, hand-in-hand, around a mound of leaves. (In some versions, they circle.) They chant:

 Leaf Man Rise Up Leaf Man Rise Up Leaf Man Rise Up