The Green Man (2)

Julia Hamilton-Udny, daughter of Robert 11th Lord Belhaven, married Fitzroy Richard Somerset, 4th Baron Raglan. He was an atheist and a humanist and an anthropologist; he was a member of the All-Party Humanist Group at Westminster, and a prominent member of the British Humanist Association.
It is commonly said that Lady Raglan invented the term 'Green Man' and the mythology surrounding this figure; and that she did so in 1939. None of this is precisely accurate: the term Green Man had for centuries been applied to figures in English Folklore. But the rigmarole associated with this figure since the 1930s can certainly attributed to her. "It seems to me that not very deeply buried in this rite we have the bones, the framework, of the magical rite of the Spring Sacrifice ... a man was chosen to represent the god, and he, after conferring by the proper magical ceremonies his strength and fertility upon his people was sacrificed (perhaps by hanging), and his head placed in a sacred tree ..." …