Happy St. Patrick's Day

[BIAD]

Ah, very enlightening. I was just wondering today what St. Patrick's day was about besides St. Patrick eradicating all the snakes in Ireland.

Would Osiris and the Celtic "Green Man" be the same? What of the "Jack in the Green"?

Like most legends and folklore celebrations, there's always a direct connection with death and an imagined concept
of afterlife. None of us like to think that we spend our time here on Earth as just another species, a shaven-ape who
believes he rules the planet because he has thumbs!

So we make up stories to allay that horrible question our children will ask one day, am I going to die?
Osirus, Hades, Kali, Anubis, all parts of a contrived narrative to promote ourselves as part of something bigger and
a comfort blanket to imply that beyond this limited existence, there is a system that guarantees perpetuation of those
adhere to a selected belief.

But at the beginning of any creed that promises immortality of one's soul, there must an acceptance of trust and it's
this dependency that needs constant support if the religious doctrine is to continue. Information is created to reinforce
and to feed the commitment that a follower has willingly given and from that, the bursar of such 'knowledge' accrues
power of an individual who wants to believe.

Those who are pragmatically aware of this social fear of death can often abuse such influence for their own ends and
even today, we can see instances where two-or-more parties of certain dogmas fight to acquire sole possession of the
public's faith and attention. One trick to draw a congregation from one opinion to another is to align similar information
that creates doubt in an originally accepted belief.

From the eras when Egypt, Persia, Rome and Greece were powerful influences, doctrines have appeared, spurred-off,
diluted and adjusted to deal with the times they prospered. But one aspect has always remained, the eternal yearning
for the reins of controlling those who desire such faiths.

An example of such avarice for power can be seen in the legends of the Jack O' The Green and The Green Man. It isn't
simple because like many acts of persuasion, it takes a particular announcer and must have the right flavour.
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During the better times of Rome, when lavish celebrations were undertaken for their Gods and other reasons, many of
those partaking enjoyed the slightly-voyeuristic trend of mask-wearing. The need for one-upmanship in such festivities
meant that these facial disguises became more and more elaborate. Laurel wreaths were incorporated into the masks
and hinting towards certain deities of Rome, foliage became a standard aspect when creating such headwear.

But as we know, an act performed regularly can become a custom, a 'traditional' facet and in some cases, a ritual. If
a contemporary routine is endorsed enough, it can also be immersed in the world of art and the Roman masks became
just that, an art form.

As Roman influences in Britain were slowly absorbed by the lesser-developed residents of those rainy isles, the opulent
villas and classical temples of the invaders were ostentatiously decorated with brightly-hued murals of deities and unusual
depictions of traditional Roman values. One of these standards represented on the often-tiled floors of the buildings were
renderings of the foliated masks of their festivities.

For an imaginative person, the leering foliage-garnished faces could be possibly attached to paganistic beliefs and Druidic
ritual. For someone who didn't have to plough a field or sell their wares in a market, they could spend their time conjuring
up a connection between the painted masks and the fanciful rustic peasant who lived an imaginary life of happiness in a
quaint cottage surrounded by rosy-cheeked children with the sun shining down on everyone.

Enter Lady Raglan, the wife of Baron Raglan. In a Folklore journal of 1939, the well-to-do aristocrat used the term 'Green
Man' to associate the grotesques sported on many European and British churches to the Roman images found in early
excavations. But the Lady didn't just stop there, she also connected her self-created assumption that The Green Man of
the wild woods to Jack-in-the-Green and added that this odd character took part in spring fertility rituals in the days of
yore!

Others leapt onto the bandwagon and The Green Man became the offspring of Pan, the leaf-face morphed into being a
spirit of a felled tree and other semi-pagan ideas with no definable attestation to these suggestions. The true origins of
both characters became muffled, dumbed-down in favour of this more-idealistic beliefs. But... one can logically see the
connection and that's the trick.

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It's fashionable today to talk about the many divisions we have in our societies and the fallout we supposedly endure as if
it is abominable and traumatic. The truth is, we've never had it so good! But whenever folklore, legends and mythology are
discussed, we will always repurpose the narrative to suit the audience. This is what happened to Jack O' the Green.

You're a farmer, you till the soil, feed your cows and then tomorrow do the same. Seasons mean a lot in your line of work
and if it's not pissing down or snowing, you'll feel that there's a greater chance that you and your family will see the winter
out if your crops and livestock are not effected by such inclement weather.

So when summer comes around and you've had your nose to the agricultural-grindstone, it's a time of abundance and dare
we suggest, even an opportunity for a little merriment. Hence the May Day celebrations, where social conviviality and cheer
could be acquired in a community instead of walking in cow dung and sweating cobs in the kitchen. For one bright sunny day,
garlands of flowers can worn, ale can be gulped and the children can dance around a ribbon-bound wooden pole. They had
all made it through the winter and hats-over-the-windmill if they weren't happy to do so.

It was during these festivities that collecting garlands became a fad, a trend that demanded any woman adorned with such
flowery decorations -traditionally milkmaids, would make sure that next year her ornaments would out-do anyone else's in
the village. These neck-worn wreaths became more and more elaborate and when chimney sweeps introduced themselves
into the unformulated competition, men would be seen shuffling into the village square on May Day head-to-toe in foliage.
Jack of The Green had been born.

But how does one remove from a narrative the lewdness that drunken men and women enjoyed during that rare warm day
of celebration? How can a picturesque story that bridges class-structure be displayed that doesn't taint the teller with hints
of countrified, boozy, uncultivated, salaciousness? Lady Raglan had an app for that.

With a smattering of aloof word-smithing, the unsophisticated aspects of May Day were removed and with it, a bridge was
formed to shroud any societal-standings and a rustic record created to give it mystery that endorsed the notion that Britain
held a semi-religious history that preceded the Roman invasion. It had the flavour and came from a person of note.

The fact it was all a load of bollocks never came into it because Lady Raglan had a title and this equates to high education
and power. The arithmetic has always been the same and forgive me for writing the next part, but this how it was and in
some areas of the elite, still is. Barons and Baronets believe they don't have to dig culverts because  the unenlightened rubes
do it for them. They take one's labour and when they can, they'll take history too.