There is a creature of legend, and probably myth, the wodewose; he is a hairy wild man who lives on the old forests and woods of Britain and Europe. he wears no clothes and carries a club and he is a peaceful and reclusive creature, and his image is often seen in medieval carvings, and he also figured as a character in parades and mystery or miracle plays. His form appears on crests and shields across the continent for the early to late middle ages. His ancestors go back into the so-called Dark Ages, and to the Celts, and maybe, some claim even further, back to the time when the last Neanderthal people were being assimilated or slaughtered by the modern humans.
I found two wodewoses in Rippon Cathedral, on the beautiful misericords there. In my story for reluctant readers, ‘The Story of Rufus Redmayne, Rufus’s grandmother Maria, claims that there are even yet wodewose and green men in Camel Wood.
Beulah in ‘Night Vision’ also sees a trace “Beulah began to walk again. There was a rock with a lichen growth which looked like a Green Man, she remembered passing him and looking back as she ducked beneath the bough of a tree.”
Lois Elsden 