My interpretations of the Green Men that were used as ornamentation on medieval churches, but go back (at least) to Roman times. Symbols of renewal in nature and oneness with the earth for some, demons warning for the sins of the flesh for others. As I like both (nature ànd sins of the flesh) I have drawn 13 "Green Men" and incorporated them in a Celtic tree calendar.

So here are the Green Men (and Green Women too, of course);
you can click on them for a larger view.
And please click on the name of the tree beneath each drawing to get to the Calendar.

The Celtic Tree Calendar consists of 13 months, 28 days each, for a total of 364 days. The extra day is considered a day "out of time", and is symbolic of the Day of Creation. Each month is named for a tree which signifies particular qualities of the moon during that cycle.

Robert Graves describes in his 1960 cult classic "The White Goddess" how he decoded this tree calendar from the poetry of various cultures. He was researching the Ogham alphabet, which was created by Ogma, the God of poetry, speech and eloquence, and was used by the druids.

Graves found that each letter stood for a tree: the 13 consonants formed a calendar of seasonal tree magic. Historians argue there is no historical basis for the Celtic Tree Calendar. To support their argument, they cite the Coligny Calendar, a fragmentary Gaulish model of a Celtic lunar/solar calendar dating from around 50 BC, which alternates months of 29 and 30 days, and adds a month every three years to link up the lunar year of 354 days to the solar year of 365 days.

But actually the debate is between provable historic fact and poetry, which is the embodiment of human spirit and the magic that lies within. Even if the Tree Calendar is “but” an invention of Robert Graves, it is an inspired one. And – as a contemporary druid puts it - who says that “modern” inspiration is of less value than “ancient” one?