This Folklife Today post is written by Dr. Sarah Fouts, UMBC, who shares the first film in the American Folklife Center Homegrown Foodways Film Series, available for viewing in this post and on the Library of Congress YouTube channel.
This is an entry in our occasional series on the Green Man, a figure from traditional folk culture. Among the traditional meanings shared by the figures of the Foliate Head and the Wild Man or Green Man seems to have been that humanity, like vegetation, must follow and adapt to the changing seasons. This traditional meaning could well have given rise to a connection between the Green Man and calendar customs, which goes back to some of the earliest appearances of the figure. In this post we’ll look more closely at the Green Man as an element of seasonal celebration.
We're back with another episode of the Folklife Today podcast! In this episode, John Fenn and I talk to our latest cohort of Bartis interns about their work. Each of them created a research guide for the Center, Joe Zavaan Johnson on African American banjo materials and Deena R. Owens on shape-note singing. In this blog we'll give you links to their great work and related resources, and of course the link to the podcast episode itself!