The Green Man is the title of an occasional column written by Don Wallace for The Green Guide, an environmental and health newsletter and website. The column chronicles the life of a regular guy whose wife, aka the Green Goddess, is really into consumer health issues: organic food, no chemicals, no pesticides, sustainable agriculture, no child labor, and so on. The Green Man makes good-fath efforts to follow her ever-evolving demands, but struggles to translate them into the guy lifestyle of barbecue, football, beer, sperm count, etcetera. Often he is forced to justify his new habits to his friends, the Greenfellas. The result of each episode is almost always positive, if unexpected. To read some of The Green Man's columns, click here.

In myth and in legend, tales of the Green Man go back to the very beginnings of historyˆa pagan face glimpsed in the forest, peeking out of a screen of leaves, vanishing the moment you turn around to confront him. In many cultures he was both celebrated and feared as a primal connection to the natural world. In the oldest accounts, to catch sight of his well-camouflaged visage was to put yourself in mortal danger. In other versions, he was a left-behind from the Druid or Celtic world, a wistful peeping Tom, last remnant of a vanished race. In the Middle Ages, his mask-like face became a favorite of stone masons and other artisansˆhis face is carved in a building, slipped into many a place of Christian worship in such a way as to hint at the artist and community‚s ambivalence over the new monotheism. Later still, the face of the Green Man became a common decoration of the eaves and lintels of pubs, particularly in England, where there are several named The Green Man.